As Bangladesh’s next general election is nearing fast, the Sheikh Hasina-led government’s rising challenge ahead is to stem escalating violence and provide an environment of safety for an ordered exercise of people’s democratic rights.

This is how New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management forecast in its most recent article headlined ‘Momentous Ruling’ by research associate S Binodkumar Singh.

The institute ran the item in its weekly bulletin styled ‘South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR)’ on August 5 issue (Vol-12).

In the article, the analyst has also linked the operation of the Islamist radical parties in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. It also shows how one becoming associate of the other or sings the same song in different forms on common interests at a certain stage.

According to the article, the entire Bangladesh might rock again by rising violence over Jamaat row after Eid-ul-Fitr as the radical Islamist party has planned to go for street demonstrations in protest against cancellation of its registration that results in its disqualification to participate in the polls to be held by January 2014.

Jamaat has become desperate apparently to shows its strength as its leaders have been facing the 1971 war-crime charges. The International Crimes Tribunal formed by the present government has delivered verdicts on some cases, convicting death and/or life-terms for the accused.

“Against this backdrop, there are apprehensions that the cycle of violence will escalate, even as Jamaat’s linkages with other dormant Islamist formations within and outside Bangladesh are restored. For instance, Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which came into the limelight after it carried out near-simultaneous blasts in 63 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh on August 17, 2005, has historical links with Jamaat,” the article reads.

On July 13, 2010, the JMB ‘chief’ Moulana Saidur Rahman, who was arrested on May 26, 2010, had exposed the connections between Jamaat and JMB, revealing that Saidur and several other members of the group had earlier been members of Jamaat, it mentioned.

Saidur is still under trial for the serial blast, although the group’s other leaders, including Abdur Rahman, Abdul Awal, Khaled Saifullah, Ataur Rahman and Hasan Al-Mamun, were executed on terrorism charges on March 30, 2007.

Meanwhile, protests, hartals (general strikes) and street violence, which have become the order of the day in Bangladesh, escalated after the HC verdict banning Jamaat, the article says.

Jamaat, its affiliates and supporting political formations, including Bangladesh Nationalist Party, have been engaging in violent street mobilisation since the constitution of the ICT on March 25, 2010, to investigate and prosecute suspects for their war crimes.

The radical party is demanding release of its leaders claiming that the ICT is illegal.

In a landmark move, the High Court has delivered a ruling on the legality of Jamaat’s registration with the Election Commission on August 1 and declared ‘illegal’ the registration which implies disqualification of the party leaders in taking part in the next general elections with the party’s election ‘symbol’.

The ruling angered Jamaat activists and supporters who immediately took to the streets across the country and created panic among common people by arson attacks on vehicles and public property, beating up members of law-enforcement agencies in daylight.

The article mentioned that Jamaat was registered with the EC on November 24, 2008, by making some provisional changes in its original charter. Significantly, the military-backed caretaker government had introduced the registration system before the December 29 parliamentary polls.

At the time of its registration as a political party, Jamaat had promised to further amend its charter by January 24, 2010, in line with the 2008 Representation of the People Order, disallowing the registration of a communal outfit as a political party.

However, Jamaat did not deliver on its pledge and, even after the expiry of the deadline, continued to ignore the EC’s repeated calls to amend its charter.

According to the EC’s findings, a number of provisions in Jamaat’s charter, including the call for establishing rule of Islam through organised efforts and the refusal to accept parliament’s plenary power to enact laws, were not in conformity with the country’s constitution and the RPO.

Indeed, Jamaat was founded in undivided India in 1941 by its first ameer (chief), Moulana Abul A’la Moududi, with the goal of developing an Islamic community of devout believers guided by and subordinated to ‘Islamic law’ alone.

The article says the Jamaat links with Harkatul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh were exposed on March 29, 2013, when DB personnel arrested 13 extremists, including former Jamaat leader Farid Uddin Ahammad, along with Afghan war veteran Farid Uddin Masud, a Harkatul leader in Pakistan, from Dhaka.

On March 31, BD Deputy Commissioner Nazrul Islam Mollah stated: “The detained militant leaders directly and indirectly support the anti-government movement and they were working against the war-crimes trial. Ahammad opted for reviving HuJI as there are similarities in the ideologies of the HuJI in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Similarly, linkages between banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Jamaat were exposed on July 11, 2010, when Hizbut ‘adviser’, Syed Golam Maola, arrested on July 8, 2010, told interrogators that Jamaat ‘publicity secretary’ Tasneem Alam coordinated a meeting in 2008 to discuss a joint campaign against the National Women’s Development Policy 2008.

The article refers, according to data collected from different sources by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), Bangladesh has recorded 139 fatalities, including 70 Jamaat and Islami Chhatra Shibir (student wing of Jamaat) cadres, 60 other civilians and nine security personnel (all data till August 2, 2013) since March 25, 2010, in street violence unleashed by the Jamaat-Shibir combine backed by BNP and other extremist groups such as Hefazat-e-Islam (Protectorate of Islam), who are opposing the trials.

However, the SAIR noted, strong resistance is, now building up against the repeated hartals called by the Islamist combine in the south Asian country.

The article quoted deputy leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, who warned against an extremist-terrorist revival on July 25, 2013.

Sajeda said, “They are trying to raise heads once again. They are conspiring again. We must get united to resist Jamaat. We’ll have to be tougher. We, the freedom fighters, will have to annihilate them in our lifetime. We’ll have to resist those who still dream of turning the country into Pakistan. We’ll never let the country slip into the hands of Pakistan. We’ll have to move forward with the liberation war spirit.”

The existing situation suggests that Hasina will soon confront with more volatility in political arena in the days to come.

Meanwhile, in another development, the premier’s son Sajeeb Wajed Joy on August 5 posted on his facebook ID that he has received a death threat from a person named after William Gomes.

The status said, “The following is a tweet that was sent directly to me by William Gomes. He claims to be a human rights activist and has been very active spreading false claims of human rights abuses by our government.”

“Today he (William Gomes) tweets me wishing that my mother and other family members will be murdered just as my family was murdered in 1975. This just proves that he does not believe in human rights at all, but is just using the guise to make false claims against us. He is really a terrorist,” Joy claimed.

A status of the Bangla version of the same post was also uploaded on his page.