Dhaka, December 26: Some leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its radical ally Jamaat-e-Islami have been “involved in militant activities”, the Home Minister said on Friday.
“Some leaders of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami were found involved with militant activities when the (earlier BNP-led) four-party alliance was in power,” Home Minister Sahara Khatun said.
She added that the Awami League led government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was determined to bring them to justice “to make sure that militancy does not grow in the country.”
The ruling party has accused a section of the past BNP regime of patronising militancy during its 2001-2006 tenure. Two junior ministers of Khaleda Zia’s government are in jail facing trial for their alleged links to banned Islamist groups Harkatul Jihad (HuJI) and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Former state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar last month reportedly claimed that Zia’s elder son Tarique Rahman was involved in the deadly August 21, 2004 grenade attack on Hasina’ rally that killed 24 people and injured over 300.
Media reports quoting investigators said that former junior minister for home Babar told them that Zia’s son Rahman had asked him not take actions following the attack.
Babar had reportedly told investigators that HuJI militants believed to be behind the attack had links with some ministers of the past BNP-led four-party alliance government.
Police earlier said they suspected Babar to be the mastermind of the deadly attack, while former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu of BNP too await trial for his alleged involvement in the plot.
JMB and other militant group like HuJI seemed to have suffered a setback in view of past three years of massive anti-militant security clampdown.
The past BNP-led government, however, earlier tried to deny the existence of JMB and other militant outfits while its partner Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami at that time called them a “creation of media”.
-PTI