In January 2024, as Bangladesh is expected to hold another general election, Islamist forces are making frantic bids in defeating democratic forces by returning to power and push Bangladesh towards a dark era of Islamist rule. Meanwhile, Islamists have intensified their hooliganism and carrying out systematic attacks on religious minorities singling out the minority Hindu community, who traditionally voted for the secularist Awami League. Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and its ideological partner Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is spending millions of dollars towards lobbyists in Washington and London with the ulterior agenda of returning to power through undemocratic process or hold the next election under an unelected “caretaker government” or “government of national consensus”, which can ensure victory of these Islamist forces.
While Awami League rule under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ensured stability and economic growth of the country, BNP and JeI are bringing accusations of rampant corruption stating such “crony corruption has dogged” country’s fragile banking sector which was beset with “burgeoning NPLs and irregularities”.
They also allege, political-businessman nexus are indulged into massive corruption, while embezzlement of funds, influential appointment to bank’s governing boards and concentration of large amount of bad loans with little borrower diligence has marred governance and made the banking sector vulnerable.
Being misled by such notorious propaganda, the US authorities are considering imposing sanctions on dozens of Bangladesh nationals, using Global Magnitsky Act on allegations of corruption and money-laundering. Several high-ranking officials in Washington DC told me that process of imposing such sanctions have already started, where few days ago, the US has imposed sanctions on Paraguay’s former president Horacio Cartes and four of his companies, and accused Cartes of engaging in corruption before, during and after his term as president.
Biden administration is also putting pressure on authorities in Dhaka to ensure that the 2024 general election is free, fair, credible and transparent, while they are ignoring the fact that Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is unwilling to participate in the election unless it ensures its return to power.
According to Bangladesh authorities, they are taking every necessary step to ensure the 2024 general elections to be participatory, credible and transparent. But they complain, BNP and its Islamist cronies are actually looking for sabotaging the election and return to power through unconstitutional means. Meanwhile BNP and Jamaat are playing religion card thus pushing forward their anti-India rhetoric with the dangerous agenda of misleading people. Taking this advantage, Islamist and jihadist groups have started resurging from hiding and according to media reports, Rohingya jihadist groups such as Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) are focusing on increasing its number of jihadists by recruiting Rohingyas thus giving them commando training within remote hilly areas and are also collecting weapons and explosives. It may be mentioned here that, currently there are over 1.20 million Myanmar Rohingyas in Bangladesh, who had been temporarily sheltered in 2017 amid genocide committed by Myanmar army.
In my opinion, if Islamists in Bangladesh fail to sabotage the 2024 general election, they may resort to jihadist terror acts throughout the country, which would ultimately spread throughout the region thus posing serious security threats.
