Inqilab Moncho convenor Sharif Osman Hadi—one of the prominent student activists of the 2024 July revolution—was shot on December 12 while campaigning in Dhaka 8 constituency, where he was a candidate in the forthcoming election. Hadi was airlifted to Singapore, where he subsequently passed away.
His death sent the crowd in Dhaka into a frenzy, demanding justice. No one has a clue about who killed Hadi. Yet rumour mongers had a field day and, using social media, accused the Awami League (AL) of killing Hadi—even alleging that the killers fled to India.
Vested interests calculatedly directed this unbridled anger towards India, a convenient scapegoat since Hasina’s exit, even though the police have said they have no information on whether Hadi’s killers have fled to India. Of course, such direction of anger towards AL and India has become a characteristic feature of post-2024 politics, the two often becoming synonymous, serving the purpose of both Islamists and their patrons. Such an insinuation against India and AL unshackles the interim regime of any responsibility and accountability for the large-scale arson that followed.
Attack on two prominent newspapers of Bangladesh, the Prothom Alo and the Daily Star, followed—their offices vandalised, looted and burnt as a part of premeditated attacks planned days before Hadi’s death.
Along with it, on December 19, the offices of prominent cultural organisations Chayanaut and Udichi were attacked, attesting to a larger design and a pattern of such attacks.
The collateral of this rage against India and the Awami League was Dipu Chandra Das, a garment worker, who was beaten to death. His body was later tied to a tree and burnt ostensibly for "hurting religious sentiments", with people recording videos of his death.
In today’s Bangladesh, proof is not required; no one asks for proof, and a mere allegation is enough for a well-organised mob. The dominance of Islamists in the Bangladesh political space is discernible.
The government has taken a backseat as the mob is taking the law increasingly into its own hands to dispense instant justice. During this violence, a BNP leader’s house in Bhawanipur union was locked and set on fire, burning alive his 7-year-old daughter. Not surprisingly, the BNP leader withdrew his nomination paper citing security reasons.
Emergence of a right-wing ecosystem
Many entities, such as Chatra Shibir—the student wing of the largest Islamic political party in Bangladesh, the Jamaat e Islami (JeI)—support the vandalism. Mostafizur Rahman, who is the secretary of Jahangirnagar University (JU) unit of the organisation, said that cultural organisations like Chayanaut and Udichi, along with the leftist and Shahbagis (those part of the 2013 Shahbag movement, which called for the death sentence to war criminals), will be crushed. Vice-President and Shibir leader of Rajshahi University Central Students' Union, Mostakur Rahman, supported the attack on the Daily Star and Prothom Alo. While JeI said it will restrain these leaders, Shibir has said these statements are a slip of the tongue. Around the same time, Shibir students forced the resignation of six deans in Rajshahi University, who they considered close to the Awami League. In Dhaka University, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall was renamed as Sharif Osman Hadi Hall. And now, the demand is to rename another hall named after Sheikh Fazilatunnesa, the wife of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to Shaheed Felani Hall. This is the same Felani who worked in India illegally, and was shot dead by the BSF while returning to Bangladesh at the border fence.
The trend one is witnessing in Bangladesh is the government’s unaccountability, which it is trying to project as helplessness. Many in Bangladesh think that the Yunus government is facilitating rightist elements, and Jamaat appears to have an overwhelming influence through the advisers of the interim regime.
Emergence of Islamic vigilante group
Since the fall of Hasina’s government, a group called 'Islam Priyo Towhid Janata’ is active in enforcing hijab, demolishing mazars and sufi shrines, vandalising picnic spots in Dinajpur and attacking Bauls to enforce Islamism.
In an incident in Rajbari, a group of Islamists calling themselves ‘towhid janata’ dug the grave of a cleric named Nurul Haque Molla and exhumed his body and burnt it.
There were attacks on minorities in Rangpur for allegedly offending Islam in their social media posts. This included the rape of a Hindu woman in Cumilla, Muradnagar, in July.
Women at the centre of harassment
Violence against women has increased as some take the liberty of advising women on how to dress. Such instances were witnessed in Dhaka University last year when Mostafa Asif Arnob, an assistant binder who harassed a woman, was freed from the police custody and garlanded by Towhidi Janata. This was followed by an incident in Savar, and another in Cox’s Bazar in September last year, where a person in the street accosted women and told them how to dress.
In most of these cases, videos of harassing women were shared on social media, indicating the audacity of the perpetrators. Women’s football matches were stalled in Joypurhat’s Akkelpur and Dinajpur’s Hakimpur till the authority intervened. In an event on April 30 organised by Ulama Mashayekh Aimma Parishad, the formation of the Women Reform Commission was rejected.
While the mainstream Islamic political parties are against women’s rights, the vigilante groups have taken it into their hands to Islamise the women. In March this year, the banned radical group, Hizbut Tahrir, held a march to establish Khelafat and demanded that the ban on them be lifted. Police dispersed them, and around 17 of them were arrested. A sense of impunity has prevailed, as in most cases, the police do not prevent this violence, and there is no exemplary punishment for those engaged in this. The government has often blamed the ‘defeated forces’ behind this deterioration of law and order.
While Islamists are getting bail after harassing women, the Law adviser was critical and concerned about the AL leaders and workers being granted bail. The Home Adviser went a step ahead and asked the police to arrest Awami League workers even if they have no cases against them.
War of narratives
The JeI’s one-point agenda has been to delegitimise the liberation war and portray themselves as victims rather than collaborators of the Pakistan regime. The 1971 narrative has been overtaken by 2024, which the JeI terms as ‘second’ liberation. The role played by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and other leaders is no longer relevant to today’s Bangladesh.
The emphasis is on how people successfully removed the ‘autocratic’ regime of Sheikh Hasina. It appears that the 1971 Yahya Khan regime is now being equated with Sheikh Hasina’s regime.
Atrocities inflicted by Pakistan in 1971 do not find any mention in the narrative spawned by the Islamists. Interestingly, the Jamaat that opposed Bangladesh’s liberation organised a victory day rally pledging to establish a “new political trend”. Its joint General Secretary went to the extent of accusing India of killing Bengali intellectuals prior to the surrender of the Pakistan Army. Its student organisation, after emerging victorious in a student union poll in Dhaka University, paid their respect to the martyred intellectuals killed by Jamaat-linked al Badr.
Under the present situation, the civil society has remained silent as the collapse of the law and order mechanism under Mohammad Yunus does not provide any space for criticism.
The Islamists are calling shots. It needs to be noted that after the fall of Hasina, the armoury was looted, and many of these weapons remain unaccounted for to date. The potential for more violence is real after Hadi’s death, as a NCP leader from Khulna, Motaleb Sikder, was killed.
The author is a research fellow at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (MP-IDSA).
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
