Bangladesh minister points finger at Pakistan for militant activities in Bangladesh

By

Sheuli Akter

A Bangladeshi minister has pointed the finger at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka for recent militant activities in Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan on Sunday brought the allegation against the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, saying it is backing militancy in the country.

“An official named Fareen at the Pakistan High Commission is patronising militancy. That has resulted in the explosions in a mosque inside the naval base in Chittagong,” he was quoted as saying in a report of the leading English newspaper The Daily Star on Sunday.

For the first time,  a Bangladeshi minister has directly accused Islamabad of backing militancy in the country.

Some members of banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) arrested recently in Dhaka reportedly admitted that they had links with Fareen Arshad, Second Secretary (political) at the Pakistan High Commission.

Khan said on Sunday that Pakistan is hatching a “conspiracy to ruin the economy of Bangladesh.”

He also demanded that Pakistan apologise to Bangladesh for the atrocities committed during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.

Khan said 195 Pakistani soldiers accused of war crimes would face ‘symbolic trials’ at Dhaka’s lash green Suhrawardy Udyan (garden) in Dhaka on March 26, the Independence Day of Bangladesh.

He slated Pakistan’s government and politicians, including Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan, for their reactions to Bangladesh’s trials of several local war criminals.

“Do you know who this Imran Khan is? Imran Khan is the nephew of shrewd (General Amir Abdullah Khan) Niazi who plotted the genocide (in Bangladesh),” he was also quoted as saying in the Daily Star report.

Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal had earlier said, “Steps will be taken through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to bring the accused Pakistani army personnel to put them under trial.”

Bangladesh have so far executed four oppostion leaders including  Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), for war crimes in 1971 working as local collaborators of the Pakistani Army.

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, says about 3 million people were killed in the war. It also states that over 300,000 women fell victim to torture, including rape by the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators.

Sheuli Akter

Sheuli Akter, from Bangladesh, is a Special Correspondent and Editor of NsNewsWire, (Bangladesh’s First Press Newswire).  Previously she had worked for Bangladesh’ top news agency, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) and top newspaper (now defunct) The Bangladesh Observer. She also gained an honourable mention in the first ever World Media Summit WMS Awards for ‘Exemplary News Professionals in Developing Countries’, receiving the award in Beijing in January 2015.