UNB :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in power since 2009, has ruled Bangladesh with a “zero tolerance to terror” policy, says an article published by The Diplomat highlighting the situation in Afghanistan.
The article written by Subir Bhaumik, a former BBC and Reuters correspondent, particularly mentioned the efforts taken following the 2016 terror strike on an upscale Dhaka restaurant that left 23, including 18 foreigners, dead.
Her government has controlled the radical Islamist ecosystem with some tough policing, often triggering Western criticism over human rights violations.
Despite these efforts, over the last two years, the radical Hifazat-e-Islam, which controls a huge network of Qaumi madrassas (seminaries), unleashed a series of violent street protests, the article reads.
Like the Taliban, the Hifazat-e-Islam leaders oppose women’s empowerment and demand the enactment of blasphemy laws and a Shariah-driven polity, wrote the author of five books on South Asian conflicts.
They are in stark opposition to Hasina, who has restored much of her father’s secular dispensation and touted economic growth, gender empowerment, and protection of minorities, he mentioned.
The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan has thus sparked fears of history repeating itself in Bangladesh, the article reads.
Dhaka has carefully reacted to the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, but its worries as the world’s third largest Muslim-majority nation are evident.
“Bangladesh is carefully observing the fast-evolving situation in Afghanistan, which we believe, may have an impact on the region and beyond,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
India’s leading Bangladesh watcher, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, said: “Both Bangladesh and India will have cause for worry about the situation in Afghanistan. The Taliban takeover is a huge morale booster for all Islamist radical forces, so both India and Bangladesh have to fight the threat of radicalism together,” he said.
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Krishnan Srinivasan said the “expected apprehensions” in India and Bangladesh were understandable, but he pointed to the success of both Delhi and Dhaka in fighting terror and developing economically.
