Attack on free minds

The gruesome attack on Chayanaut's cultural programme at Ramna Batamul was a manifestation of the militant outfit Huji's well designed plan to wage a war on the country's progressive and cultural forces.
A series of terror attacks carried out by Huji men made it clear that they wanted to succeed in their mission with arms by using the experiences they had gathered during the Soviet-Afghan war.  
In the mid and late 1980s, some Bangladeshis had gone to Afghanistan to fight for the Mujahideen militants against

the then Soviet occupation force over what they considered a communist invasion of an Islamic country.
With the Afghan war coming to an end in 1992, many returned home and with them brought the ideology of jihad to their very own land.
A group of such Afghan war returnees, who came back home in 1989 and 1990, formed Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji) as an "Islamic organisation". Abdur Rahman Faruqui, the founder of the outfit, later joined the war in Afghanistan again and died there.
Soon after Huji's formal launch through a press conference in 1992, funds began coming in.
Several persons, namely, Yunus-bin-Sharif of Chittagong, an expatriate in Saudi Arabia, Mufti Shafiqur Rahman of Bhairab, and Abdul Hye Al Harvi of Comilla used to collect funds from abroad and give them to the organisation.
With the funds, Huji used to purchase arms and ammunition from home and abroad, and used to support the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and RFO of Myanmar.
The main objective of the organisation, now banned, was to train up young Muslims and get them ready to join the war for their fellow Muslims subjected to oppression abroad.
But, eventually, in Bangladesh it was the progressive and cultural forces which became the main targets of Huji. The organisation carried out a number of gruesome terror attacks.
Udichi, a non-communal and progressive cultural organisation which believes in employing music for political purposes, became the target of the first blow when Huji men carried out a deadly blast at its programme in Jessore in 1999, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than a hundred.
At a meeting at their Mohammadpur office, the Huji men worked out the plan for the attack and decided to stop the "naked musical performances" of Udichi. Getting a nod from the organisation's Ameer Shafiqur Rahman, a team went on a recce and reported back to their chief.
Later, two Huji men-- Sabbir and Musa-- were assigned to make some bombs and use them at the venue of the Udichi programme if the cultural organisation went ahead with arranging musical shows.
Two youths namely Abdullah, aged about 17, from Chittagong, and Waliur, 20, from Jessore planted the bombs that went off between 12:30am and 1:00am on March 7.
With the cultural and progressive organisations reeling from the Udichi shock, Huji men carried out another blast at the traditional celebrations of the Bangla New Year 1408 (April 14, 2001) at the Ramna Batamul, leaving 10 people killed. Scores of others were wounded.
For years, thousands of people from all strata of the society have been gathering at the traditional centre of celebration around the Ramna Park to welcome the first day of the Bangla year with music, fanfare and colourful processions. The leading cultural platform Chhayanaut organises the event every year.
Huji men had also made an attempt in January 1999 to kill the renowned poet Shamsur Rahman, an outspoken opponent of religious fundamentalism.
Besides cultural forces, the then Awami League government, which assumed power in 1996, also became the Huji's target as the government supported a High Court's landmark verdict banning fatwa.
The government adopted a hardline position in resisting the rowdy protests by Islamic parties on the fatwa issue.
Irate with the government's move, the Huji men at a meeting at Mohammadpur decided to carry out attacks on leaders and activists of the AL, terming the party anti-Islamic and an agent of India involved in attempts to destroy Islam.
With a nod from its leader Shafiqur Rahman, Huji decided to carry out a bomb attack on Sheikh Hasina at Kotalipara, where she was supposed to attend a function in July 2000.
They planted the ammunition on the east of the stage, erected for Hasina near a pond and another near the helipad. Later, police recovered a 76-kg bomb there.
Huji men again attempted to assassinate Hasina by launching a grenade attack on an AL rally on August 21, 2004 in the capital. Hasina narrowly escaped, but 24 leaders and activists of her party were killed.
In 2004, Huji carried out a grenade attack on the then British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury at Hazrat Shahjalal's shrine in Sylhet, killing three and injuring around dozens. The blast left the British envoy injured.
The organisation also carried out other terror attacks, including one on on a rally of AL leader Suranjit Sengupta in Sunamganj in July 2001, and on the Sylhet City Corporation mayor in December 2005.
Facing a ban in 2005, former Huji men also made attempts to emerge as a political force. In their bid, they formed the Islamic Democratic Party in May 2008. The party consisted of 200 to 300 Afghan war returnees and applied to the Election Commission for registration as a parliamentary party.
The EC rejected their application. #

[The report was prepared on the basis of the charge sheet, depositions of the accused in the Ramna Batamul blast case, and newspaper reports.]