Hizbut-Tahrir Bangladesh: Islamist Movement under Terror Scanner

By Animesh Roul

Lately though, Bangladesh authority have cracked down upon Islamist group Hizbut-Tahrir-Bangladesh (HT-B) and arrested 11 members, including Syed Golam Moula, Professor at the Dhaka University and HT’s coordinator and Ahmed Jamal Iqbal, Professor at the South East University. They were arrested along with 9 others (mostly teachers and students of Universities and colleges that shows the intellectual and elitist backing of the HT) on Thursday in Rajshahi city. The leaders and activists were distributing HT’s ‘provocative’ and ‘anti state’ leaflets at the time of the arrest. The leaflet reportedly urged all Muslims to take oath for establishing the rule of Caliphate in this holy month of Ramadan and showed the democratic norms and the government in bad light.

Tokiuddin Al Nakhani’s Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation, est. 1953 in Jerusalem) is a proscribed Islamic ideological movement in many countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, but operating freely in Bangladesh since 2000. HT believes in Ummatic concept. As its website declares that :

It aims to revive the Islamic Ummah from the severe decline that it had reached, and to liberate it from the thoughts, systems and laws of Kufr, as well as the domination and influence of the Kufr states. It also aims to restore the Islamic Khilafah State so that the ruling by what Allah revealed returns.

HT’s Bangladesh unit has been under scanner for quite some time, though not branded as banned outfit and presently Bangladesh authority is probing HT-B’s suspected involvement with proscribed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and any other forms of terrorism in the country and elsewhere. Following September 18 arrests, Hizbut threatened to oust the government by launching a countrywide movement. The threat was issued at a HT-B meeting in Dhaka in clear contravention of the state of emergency in the country.

The outside world witnessed HT-B rise to prominence in 2004 and again in last year’s Muhammad cartoon controversy. The counterterror unit, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) find the statements of HT-B and JMB are similar in nature, even though RAB is yet to trace HT’s link or involvement in terrorist activity in Bangladesh.

Vowing to establish Caliphate rule in Bangladesh, HT’s Chief Coordinator Mahiuddin Ahmed openly threatened that HT-B activists will “stomp the city streets and no one will be able to live in peace on the soil of Bangladesh if […] leaders are not released in 48 hours.”His speech was definitely full of rhetoric and very much in the line of Hizbut’s global Islamic agenda. Mahiuddin Ahmed’s speech was clearly in tandem of HT’s Ummatic agenda and its believe in God’s government. He affirmed, We always want to oust all governments in all Muslim countries in the world to establish Khelafat (Caliphate) states. We have been asking for establishing Khelafat rule in the country instead of the present servile government since our first procession in the country. He also took the opportunity to blame the media for not branding the USA as a terrorist state.

Name and position of arrested HT members:

Mamun Ansari, Teacher, Computer Engineer, Darul Ihsan University
Moniruzzaman Masud, Teacher, Mathematic, Lake Head Grammar School
Omar Faruk, Student, Rajshahi Islami Bank Medical College students
Akhter Hossain and Zahidul Islam, Students, Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology

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