SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
JeI: Political reinvention
Since the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5, 2024, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) is back to the political forefront in Bangladesh, trying to expand its own area of influence and weigh its political options within the current chaos and instability.
On October 28, 2024, at a JeI protest rally at the Public Library ground against the ‘Logi-Boitha’ (Boat-hook and Oar) Movement by the Awami League on October 28, 2006, on which day six members of JeI were killed in broad daylight, council member Mahbubur Rahman Belal pledged to establish a ‘model Islamic society’ in honour of the ‘martyrs’ sacrifices’. Belal stated,
The fascist Awami League murderers established a demonic reign by killing thousands of Islam-loving people. Almighty Allah has broken their all prides by sending them abroad through the student-people mass upsurge…That case has to be revived again. Murderer Sheikh Hasina must be brought to justice and be given appropriate punishment.
On October 24, 2024, JeI’s chief Shafiqur Rahman announced at a meeting of the central working committee that Selim Uddin had been elected chief of JeI Dhaka City north unit for the 2025-2026 session.
On October 23, 2024, JeI filed a review petition with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in order to turn down its 2011 verdict that scrapped the non-party caretaker government system. JeI’s secretary general Miah Golam Porwar submitted the petition through his lawyer Mohammad Shishir Manir seeking necessary directives to reinstate the system.
On October 13, 2024, after 19 years, the Dhaka City north unit of JeI held a public conference called ‘Rukun Sammelan’ at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Center in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka, to elect its next chief, with over 10,000 Rukun (party members) voting through secret ballots. During this conference, JeI chief Shafiqur Rahman called for the trial of the Awami League under laws that were enacted during the rule of the AL regime, stating that justice must be established as soon as possible to ensure that they [Awami League] get what they truly deserve.
JeI got a new lease on life when, on August 28, 2024, the Interim Government led by Muhammad Yunus lifted the ban on the group and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS). Under the powers provided in Section 18 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009, the Interim Government cancelled the previous circular that banned JeI-ICS. The Home Ministry issued a notification in this regard. The gazette notification read,
Since there is no concrete evidence of involvement of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and its student organization Islami Chhatra Shibir in terrorism and violence… and since the Government believes that Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and all its affiliates, including its student body Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, are not involved in terrorist activities.
Earlier, on August 1, 2024, the previous Awami League-led government had banned JeI, ICS, and all of their associated organisations as political entities under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009, following nationwide unrest, citing the threat posed by the fundamentalist party to public security.
According to partial data collated by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), since the year 2000, 285 persons, including 112 civilians, 6 Security Force (SF) personnel, and 167 JeI/ICS cadres have been killed in 199 incidents of JeI-ICS linked violence (data till November 2, 2024).
JeI was formed in undivided India on August 26, 1941, in Lahore’s Islamia Park by its first Ameer (chief) Maulana Abul A’la Maududi, with the goal of developing an Islamic community of devout believers. After India’s Partition in 1947, the party was divided into Jamat-e-Islami Hind and Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. JeI started its activities in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) during the 1950s. The Jamaat had also been banned on two earlier occasions, in 1959 and 1964, in Pakistan (prior to the creation of Bangladesh), for its communal role. During the Bangladesh liberation struggle, JeI in East Pakistan joined forces with the Pakistan Army to participate in the genocide of an estimated three million civilians, and a range of brutal crimes, including the widespread use of rape as a weapon. Jamaat has never regretted or offered apology for its role in 1971.
In independent Bangladesh, JeI resumed overt activities in 1979. Between 1981 and 1987, the number of full members of JeI rose from 650 to 2,000, while associate membership doubled to approximately two million. The rising popularity of the organization renewed its political ambitions. The party played a crucial role in Governments formed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 1991 and 2001. The JeI had 18 seats in the Jatiyo Shangshad (Bangladesh Parliament) of 1991 and 17 seats in 2001. In 1996, it had three seats. In the General Elections of 2008, it secured five seats.
After the Awami League came to power in 2009, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) was established to try those accused of war crimes. The War Crimes (WC) Trials, which began on March 25, 2010, have so far indicted 50 members of JeI. Prominent leaders of Jamaat were convicted and hanged, including JeI politician Abdul Quader Mollah (hanged in 2013), Ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami (hanged in 2016) and secretary general Ali Ahsan Mujaheed (hanged in 2015). Ghulam Azam was sentenced to 90 years in prison, while Delawar Hossain Sayedee’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Both died while serving jail terms.
Yet, it appears, the Jamaat has been thriving. As reported in June, 2023, in 2008, the number of the party’s permanent members or Rukun was 23,863. That figure now stands at 73,046, a threefold rise. The Islamist party has also recorded a threefold rise in the number of its activists, which has leapt to 6.39 lakh from 2.21 lakh during the same period. Additionally, there has been a nearly fivefold rise in the party’s women Rukun, and a fourfold rise in women activists. Similarly, the number of associate members has now grown to 22.9 million from 10.3 million in 2008.
As expected, along with Jamaat, ICS is also demonstrating its ‘presence’ since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster from power.
On October 29, ICS announced its Jahangirnagar University (JU) committee, in a statement on its Facebook page. The names of the committee’s president Harunur Rashid Rafi, secretary Mohibur Rahman Mohib, and publicity secretary Abdullah Al Mamun Saki were declared.
On October 28, a Facebook post by ICS revealed that it had 2,200 active members in the Islami University in Kushtia. The post identified ICS’s university unit president HM Abu Musa and general secretary Mahmudul, as having held their posts since January 1, 2024.
On October 3, ICS’s Dhaka University (DU) unit declared its full 14-member DU committee. According to the announcement made on Facebook, Mohammad Abu Shadik Kayem was appointed president, with SM Farhad serving as the general secretary.
Further, on October 23, a Rangpur Court acquitted 41 JeI-ICS leaders and activists, in a case filed under the Speedy Trial Act-2002, 11 years ago. Judge Zulkan Nahim of the Rangpur Senior Judicial Magistrate Court-1 passed the order acquitting all the accused leaders and activists of Jamaat and Shibir. The case was filed for creating chaos and vandalism on February 18, 2013.
The Jamaat has also been trying to extend its outreach to other countries in order to expand its organisational base, mobilise new members and raise funds. In 2022, JeI sent letters to different Muslim countries and Islamic organisations abroad, describing its current political situation in Bangladesh and branding the then Awami League government ‘anti-Islam’. The organisation wrote to the Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood on December 8, 2022; the Malaysian Prime Minister on November 24, 2022; the Chairman of The Welfare Party of Turkey on November 6, 2022; the President of The Felicity Party of Turkey on October 24, 2022; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on October 17, 2022 and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on September 30, 2022.
Since, August 5, 2024, representatives of many countries have tried to reach out to Jamaat to discuss the future course of politics in Bangladesh. On October 21, JeI chief Shafiqur Rahman met with the Ambassadors of Denmark and Sweden, Christian Brax Møller and Nicholas Weeks, along with Norway’s Deputy Head of Mission Marian Rabe Navelsrud. According to JeI’s press release, the meeting discussed Bangladesh’s interests, particularly its democracy and electoral system. The ambassadors shared their experiences with the numerical proportional election system used in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, offering suggestions on implementing a similar system in Bangladesh.
On October 14, Acting High Commissioner Nardia Simpson, Australian High Commission Bangladesh, met JeI chief Shafiqur Rahman to discuss Australia’s views on building strong institutions to ensure the protection and fulfilment of human rights. Shafiqur disclosed that they discussed how to advance relations with “mutual respect and love,” and described the meeting as “very friendly and successful.”
Earlier, on September 2, 2024, Chinese Ambassador to Dhaka Yao Wen held a meeting with Jamaat’s chief Shafiqur Rahman at the party’s central office in Dhaka. The two talked about political changes in Bangladesh and promised closer co-operation between the people and governments of both the countries.
Under the current political scenario of Bangladesh, JeI-ICS are here to stay, thrive and assert their radical political ambition. The future of Bangladesh is likely to substantially be dictated by the radical ideology of JeI-ICS cohort, as democratic and liberal voices are systematically silenced in the country.
Assam: Reviving Islamist threat
Assam which for long had been threatened by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)-backed Islamist extremist groups, is once again facing renewed threats from such groupings – both operating out of Pakistani and Bangladeshi soil. Global Islamist terrorist formations also create security challenges.
A majority of the Islamist militant groups in Assam were founded between 1990 and 1996 with the prime objective of safeguarding the ‘overall interests’ of the minority Muslim communities in the region.
On October 5, 2024, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested 10 operatives of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) from the Goalpara and Hojai Districts of Assam, during a massive crackdown in the JeM conspiracy case. The arrests included Sheikh Sultan Salah Uddin Ayubi aka Ayubi, from Krishnai in Goalpara District. He was arrested for his role in conspiracy case RC-13/2024/NIA/DLI. During the operation, NIA seized several incriminating documents, electronic devices, pamphlets and magazines, and is examining further leads.
The Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, explained that the arrests “bring home” the reality that Islamist extremist groups are becoming a bigger menace in Assam, and that the state’s indigenous population could face difficulties in the years to come if the extremist Islamist doctrine persists in Assam.
According to partial data compiled by the South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 14 operatives of different Islamist terrorist groups – JeM, 10; and Ansar-al-Islam (AaI)/Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and Islamic State (IS), two each – have been arrested in 2024 (data till November 2, 2024). In the corresponding period of 2023, at least 11 such operatives – Popular Front of India (PFI) and ABT, five each; and one (group not identified) – were arrested. Details of the remaining arrests in 2024, apart from the incident of October 5, are given below:
May 13: Assam Police arrested two operatives of the AaI – Bahar Mia (30) and Rasel Mia (40), both residents of Bangladesh – from Guwahati in the Kamrup (Metro) District of Assam. The duo was illegally staying in India without passports, had obtained Indian documents through fraudulent means, and was working to spread a terrorist network in Assam and India.
March 20: The Assam Police’s Special Task Force (STF) arrested two high-ranking leaders of IS, Haris Farooqi aka Harish Ajmal Farukhi and Anurag Singh aka Rehan, in an operation in the Dharmasala area of Dhubri District in Assam. They were arrested after they entered Assam from Bangladesh. Farooqi, identified as the ‘head’ of IS in India, and Singh, his associate, were planning sabotage activities after entering India. Both were involved in recruitment, terrorist funding, and plotting attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and face charges from NIA, Delhi and Lucknow Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), and other agencies.
Over the past several years, transborder Islamist terrorist groups, mainly based in Bangladesh, including Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and AaI, have been trying to establish their bases in Assam.
On March 4, 2022, the Special Branch of the Assam Police arrested five people, including a Bangladesh national, Saiful Islam aka Haroon Rashid aka Mohammed Suman, for their alleged links with AaI. They were arrested from Barpeta, Howly and Kalgachia, all in Barpeta District. Saiful Islam had illegally entered India and was working as a teacher in the Dhakalipara masjid. Saiful Islam had successfully indoctrinated and motivated the four others to join the module, with a view to developing the Barpeta District of Assam as a base for jihadi activities of Al-Qaeda and its related organisations.
Chief Minister Sarma had then disclosed that the militants of AaI modules arrested in the state in 2022 were using sophisticated peer-to-peer encrypted chat apps for communication. Further, he had also disclosed that during the Coronovairus-19 (Covid-19) years the AaI modules were training cadres in bomb making in Barpeta District. He had added that Assam had become a “hotbed for jihadi activities”.
Similarly, NIA arrested two operatives of the AaI module in Barpeta District, Akbar Ali and Abul Kalam Azad, on April 5, 2023, and filed a charge sheet against them on August 29, 2023, for conspiring and plotting to execute terrorist activities. NIA said that the radicalisation and mobilisation of Muslims were done through the module’s Bangladeshi handlers – Zakir and Mehboor Rahman.
Islamist radical group PFI, which the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) pronounced an “unlawful association” on September 28, 2022 for conspiring to establish Islamic rule in India by 2047, with its main roots in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, has also paved its way into Assam. However, there were no PFI-linked arrests in 2024, though three incidents of arrest linked to the group were recorded in 2023:
May 17: Assam Police arrested one PFI operative, Abdul Razzaq Ali, from the Nagarbera area of Kamrup District.
April 23: Two PFI operatives, Saiful Islam and Shafiqul Islam, were arrested from the Dhubri District of Assam. The arrested operatives taught in a madrasa (Islamic Seminary), Al-Jamiatul Asia Lil Banat Panbari, of Dhubri.
April 8: Two PFI operatives, Zakir Hussain and Samad Ahmed, were arrested along with one operative of the group’s student wing, Campus Front of India (CFI), Jahidul Islam Mirdha, from the Barpeta Railway Station area in Barpeta District. Zakir Hussain served as the ‘secretary’ of the Assam state committee of PFI, while Samad Ahmed was the ‘president’ of the PFI Assam State Committee, and Jahidul Islam was the ‘president’ of the CFI Assam Committee.
Further, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati student, Touseef Ali Farooqui (20) – in the 4th-year at the Bioscience – was arrested on March 23, 2024, in Kamrup District, while trying to leave the country in an attempt to join IS.
With the arrests of operatives from various terrorist groups, such as JeM, AaI, IS, AQIS, and PFI, it is evident that Islamist radicalisation has found some foothold in Assam. In a press release dated October 5, 2024, on the arrest of JeM operatives, the NIA observed
The suspects were engaged in radicalising individuals associated with JeM, and were engaged in disseminating terrorist-related propaganda, and radicalising and recruiting youth into the Jamaat outfit inspired by JeM. These suspects were involved in motivating youth into committing violent terror attacks across India.
An NIA official also informed The Assam Tribune on October 26, 2024, that terrorist groups had been using digital or online social media platforms to recruit and radicalise young people from Assam. These tactics are comparable to those used by Islamist terrorist groups based in Pakistan, as well as Khalistani groups. In this regard, an unnamed senior intelligence officer observed
With the inroads and improvement of information technology, terrorist outfits do not have to send their own people to India, but they can induct youths into their fold by sitting thousands of miles away.
According to official inputs, radical Islamist terrorist groups have likely increased their recruitment efforts in the aftermath of the August 5, 2024, coup and the subsequent chaos in Bangladesh. Indian intelligence agencies have reported that the Bangladesh-based terrorist group AaI may try to establish a presence in Assam and West Bengal. Reports indicate that a prominent AaI leader, Abdullah Talah, was working to spread AaI influence in northeastern India. Moreover, Jashimuddin Rahmani, another prominent AaI leader was released by the interim government of Bangladesh at a time when AaI has been attempting to create a jihadi network with the aid of sleeper cells, especially in Assam and Tripura in India.
As SAIR noted earlier, a majority of the Islamist extremist and terrorist groups in Assam were founded between 1990 and 1996, with the prime objective of safeguarding the ‘overall interests’ of the minority Muslim communities in the region. According to SATP, at least 20 Islamist terrorist formations have operated in Assam at different periods.
Meanwhile, the surge in infiltration attempts by Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas into Assam, after the coup in Bangladesh, also creates additional potential risks. Chief Minister Sarma tweeted in October that around 130 individuals, who were attempting to enter Assam illegally from Bangladesh in the preceding two months, following the political turmoil that erupted in Bangladesh, had been intercepted by the Assam Police. In a video message on his social media platforms, Sarma announced that the process of establishing 12 Border Outposts in proximity to the Indo-Bangla border was underway to bolster coordination with the Central agencies.
The attempt to re-establish Islamist terrorist groups’ bases in Assam and the demographic infiltration by foreign elements, particularly those from Bangladesh, have raised renewed concerns about security in Assam in particular, and northeastern India at large.
Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
October 28 – November 3, 2024
Provisional data compiled from English language media sources.