Bangladesh launch crackdown against radicals | Economic Times

The Sheikh Hasina government has launched a massive crackdown against the Pak-backed radicals and extremists who triggered the communal incidents beginning with Bangladesh’s Comilla district during the Durga Puja last week. The perpetrator of the incident in Comilla has been nabbed from Cox Bazar area late on Thursday. Bangladesh police have identified three perpetrators and launched a manhunt to nab the trio besides arresting perpetrators from other parts of the country, highly placed sources from Dhaka told ET.According to Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, the main perpetrator of the Comilla crisis is at large but all efforts are on to nab him. Bangladesh’s elite paramilitary force Rapid Action Battalion has been deployed to crack down the extremists who instigated the violence and identify masterminds, ET has learnt.Senior ruling party sources from Dhaka told ET that the Opposition BNP and outlawed Jamaat-e-Islami backed by Pakistan, were the masterminds of the violence. There are allegations that extremists entered Bangladesh a few months back to mastermind the violence during Durga Puja. The Taliban takeover of Kabul have emboldened radicals in Bangladesh, sources alleged.Undeterred, Dhaka University students and teachers in large numbers, joined the Hindu community to protest against the violence.The ruling Awami League is even planning a return to the 1972 secular Constitution dropping Islam as the state religion and this would put the banned pro-Pak Jamaat-e-Islami and other radical groups on the backfoot, Dhaka based sources told ET. Islam was introduced as a state religion in the 1980s by the then Ershad government.Last week, Bangladesh’s Deputy Information Minister Murad Hassan also asserted that Bangladesh is a secular country that would revert to the 1972 constitution put in place by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.Hassan said, “We have the blood of freedom fighters in our body. At any cost, we have to go back to the constitution of ’72. I will speak in Parliament to go back to the constitution … Even if no one speaks, Murad will speak in Parliament.”But hardliners and extremists from outlawed groups have threatened to create a stir if Bangladesh reverts to the 1972 Constitution. Bangladesh is counting on India’s support to handle these extremists who can oppose this move to revert to 1972 constitution and also derail economic success.