Bibhu Prasad Routray
South Asia Intelligence Review, vol.6, no.50, June 23, 2008
In the early hours of June 19, 2008, para-military Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel cordoned off a house in the Baradi village of the western Kushtia District. The knocking on the door led a woman to open it – and to shut it instantly, panicked by the sight of scores of uniformed personnel surrounding the house. Claiming that they anticipated gun shots from inside, RAB personnel immediately opened fire on the house. After an hour and a half of firing, the doors were forced open; inside, 45-year old Abdur Rashid Malitha alias Tapan alias Dada Tapan, the founder of the Janajuddha faction of the Purba Banglar Communist Party (PBCP) and his 32-year female companion, identified as Rikta, lay dead, riddled with bullets. No weapon was found on the extremist leader and his companion, whom the RAB described as the ‘commander’ of the women’s wing of the outfit. Before the raid, RAB personnel had arrested Tapan’s brother Akash from the neighbouring Udibari village. The raid on Tapan’s ancestral house at Mushuriapara village in the Pabna District, a day later, yielded nothing but a few booklets and pamphlets of the PBCB. The killing of the extremist leader was hailed as a major achievement in neutralising the menace of left-wing extremism (LWE) in Bangladesh.
Subsequent intelligence leaks published prominently in the national media detailed the profiles of 40 absconding leaders of a dozen LWE outfits, operating mostly in the ten south-western Districts of the country [Kushtia, Meherpur, Chuadanga, Jhenidah, Magura, Jessore, Narail, Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira]. The leaders included Azibor Rahman of the Gono Mukti Fouz (GMF) and his second-in-command Mandar, GMF commander Sahin and three 'regional commanders' - Mukul, Tikka and Bakhtiar, Lalchand Bahini chief Lalchand, Mukti Bahini chief Mukti, and Hamidul and Rashidul, two brothers who lead the Hara Bahini. Three regional leaders of PBCP-Janajuddha Badiur Rahman alias Badi, Anarul Islam and Atiar were reported to be hiding in the Meherpur District. The total strength of the LWE cadres was estimated to be 5000, all of whom were described as armed. The reports projected an alleged regime of killing, abduction and extortion let loose by the LWE cadres and maintained that their neutralisation was vital if order was to be established in vast parts of the country ‘affected’ by this ‘raging insurgency’.
To any Bangladesh watcher, however, such reports, offer an imaginative narrative and interesting reading, but are nothing more than a compilation of half truths and plain lies.
The reality is, the LWE movement in Bangladesh, often described by the generic term ‘Sarbaharas’, in its history of over three decades, is a highly dispersed, low-scale and criminalised movement, consisting of a multiplicity of minor groups, no combination of which constitutes any significant threat to the country’s security. Even though media reports, quoting unnamed intelligence officials, continue to indicate some level of mobilisation by LWE groups, especially in the south-western Districts, their activities in recent years have not proceeded beyond random acts of thuggery and extortion. Targeted action by the security forces has left the movement, already weakened by continuous infighting, in complete disarray. None of the LWE outfits have woman cadres and thus, the branding of slain ‘Rikta’ as a commander of the PBCP-Janajuddha’s recently formed women’s wing is figment of an outrageous imagination. Dada Tapan had actually bought a piece of land, constructed a house and was trying to rediscover an uneventful life, when the RAB decided to cut his dream short.
Despite its marginalisation, indeed, utter irrelevance, the feeble and degenerate LWE movement in Bangladesh remains the principal focus of Security Forces (SF)’ ‘counter-terrorist’ responses, especially of operations by the RAB, which, over the past years, has attained a measure of notoriety by apprehending and then eliminating a number of alleged LWE cadres in fake encounters. On January 26, 2008, for instance, the ‘second-in-command’ of the PBCP-Janajuddha, identified as Mohammad Ali, was killed during an alleged ‘encounter’ at Goaishbari village under Ataikula Police Station in the Pabna District. Two days later, on January 27, 57-year old Akdil Hossain alias Buro, ‘chief’ and one of the founding members of the New Biplobi Communist Party (NBCP) was picked up from a shop at Rayerbazar in capital Dhaka and shown as dead in a January 31 ‘encounter’ that supposedly took place in the Dakshin Mulgram village in the Kushtia District. A range of similar SF ‘operations’ resulted in the killing of 139 LWE cadres in 2006, and a further 72 in 2007. In the first six months of 2008 (till June 20), 26 such fatalities have already been reported.
The narrative on the LWE remains clearly exaggerated in Bangladesh. For example, Dada Tapan’s obituary attributed the loss of ‘over 500 lives’ to the PBCP-Janajuddha, since the group’s formation in June 2003. However, data compiled from open sources by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), however, gives a total of just 48 civilian casualties between 2005 and 2008 (till June 20). It is highly unlikely, either that a bulk of over 450 killings occurred in the 18 months between June 2003 and December 2004, or that the national media in Bangladesh simply missed out on reporting carnage of such a magnitude.
Apart from their indulgence in petty crimes, LWE leaders did serve a purpose for the District level leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Before the BNP discovered the wisdom of investing in the radical Islamist Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), probably at the instance of its alliance partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), the LWE groups served as an effective tool for the party’s area domination activities in the South-western Districts. The BNP consequently allowed – and perhaps set up – the dramatic operation launched by the PBCP-Marxist-Leninist cadres in the Khulna District judge's court premises on January 26, 2002, to rescue the then arrested Dada Tapan, who was functioning as the chief of the outfit’s military-wing.
In subsequent years, LWE groups fell out of the Government’s favour and the Islamists were let loose against them in several Districts. The now executed JMJB leader Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai led a gory campaign of terror against the ‘outlaws’ by publicly executing and maiming several of the cadres. The national media carried photographs of dead ‘Sarbahara’ cadres hung upside down from trees.
Contrary to the image of invincibility painted by Bangladeshi intelligence agencies, LWE cadres have had very little access to sophisticated arms and ammunition and are hardly a match for either the elite RAB or the comparatively poorly equipped armed Police. Between 2005 and 2008 (till June 20), only nine SF personnel have been killed in LWE-related violence all over the country. Typical LWE operations have involved the use of locally made shutter-guns and poorly assembled low-grade explosives, which are more of instruments for eliciting compliance to extortion demands, rather than weapons of terror.
The LWE, with its existing capacity, constitutes no significant threat to Bangladesh’s security and cannot, consequently, exhaust the primary focus of SF operations. The Government, on the contrary, would do well to concentrate more on the latent activities of the Islamist extremists, whose involvement in terrorist strikes in various urban centres across India, over the past years, has grown quite frequent.
Subsequent intelligence leaks published prominently in the national media detailed the profiles of 40 absconding leaders of a dozen LWE outfits, operating mostly in the ten south-western Districts of the country [Kushtia, Meherpur, Chuadanga, Jhenidah, Magura, Jessore, Narail, Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira]. The leaders included Azibor Rahman of the Gono Mukti Fouz (GMF) and his second-in-command Mandar, GMF commander Sahin and three 'regional commanders' - Mukul, Tikka and Bakhtiar, Lalchand Bahini chief Lalchand, Mukti Bahini chief Mukti, and Hamidul and Rashidul, two brothers who lead the Hara Bahini. Three regional leaders of PBCP-Janajuddha Badiur Rahman alias Badi, Anarul Islam and Atiar were reported to be hiding in the Meherpur District. The total strength of the LWE cadres was estimated to be 5000, all of whom were described as armed. The reports projected an alleged regime of killing, abduction and extortion let loose by the LWE cadres and maintained that their neutralisation was vital if order was to be established in vast parts of the country ‘affected’ by this ‘raging insurgency’.
To any Bangladesh watcher, however, such reports, offer an imaginative narrative and interesting reading, but are nothing more than a compilation of half truths and plain lies.
The reality is, the LWE movement in Bangladesh, often described by the generic term ‘Sarbaharas’, in its history of over three decades, is a highly dispersed, low-scale and criminalised movement, consisting of a multiplicity of minor groups, no combination of which constitutes any significant threat to the country’s security. Even though media reports, quoting unnamed intelligence officials, continue to indicate some level of mobilisation by LWE groups, especially in the south-western Districts, their activities in recent years have not proceeded beyond random acts of thuggery and extortion. Targeted action by the security forces has left the movement, already weakened by continuous infighting, in complete disarray. None of the LWE outfits have woman cadres and thus, the branding of slain ‘Rikta’ as a commander of the PBCP-Janajuddha’s recently formed women’s wing is figment of an outrageous imagination. Dada Tapan had actually bought a piece of land, constructed a house and was trying to rediscover an uneventful life, when the RAB decided to cut his dream short.
Despite its marginalisation, indeed, utter irrelevance, the feeble and degenerate LWE movement in Bangladesh remains the principal focus of Security Forces (SF)’ ‘counter-terrorist’ responses, especially of operations by the RAB, which, over the past years, has attained a measure of notoriety by apprehending and then eliminating a number of alleged LWE cadres in fake encounters. On January 26, 2008, for instance, the ‘second-in-command’ of the PBCP-Janajuddha, identified as Mohammad Ali, was killed during an alleged ‘encounter’ at Goaishbari village under Ataikula Police Station in the Pabna District. Two days later, on January 27, 57-year old Akdil Hossain alias Buro, ‘chief’ and one of the founding members of the New Biplobi Communist Party (NBCP) was picked up from a shop at Rayerbazar in capital Dhaka and shown as dead in a January 31 ‘encounter’ that supposedly took place in the Dakshin Mulgram village in the Kushtia District. A range of similar SF ‘operations’ resulted in the killing of 139 LWE cadres in 2006, and a further 72 in 2007. In the first six months of 2008 (till June 20), 26 such fatalities have already been reported.
The narrative on the LWE remains clearly exaggerated in Bangladesh. For example, Dada Tapan’s obituary attributed the loss of ‘over 500 lives’ to the PBCP-Janajuddha, since the group’s formation in June 2003. However, data compiled from open sources by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), however, gives a total of just 48 civilian casualties between 2005 and 2008 (till June 20). It is highly unlikely, either that a bulk of over 450 killings occurred in the 18 months between June 2003 and December 2004, or that the national media in Bangladesh simply missed out on reporting carnage of such a magnitude.
Apart from their indulgence in petty crimes, LWE leaders did serve a purpose for the District level leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Before the BNP discovered the wisdom of investing in the radical Islamist Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), probably at the instance of its alliance partner, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), the LWE groups served as an effective tool for the party’s area domination activities in the South-western Districts. The BNP consequently allowed – and perhaps set up – the dramatic operation launched by the PBCP-Marxist-Leninist cadres in the Khulna District judge's court premises on January 26, 2002, to rescue the then arrested Dada Tapan, who was functioning as the chief of the outfit’s military-wing.
In subsequent years, LWE groups fell out of the Government’s favour and the Islamists were let loose against them in several Districts. The now executed JMJB leader Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai led a gory campaign of terror against the ‘outlaws’ by publicly executing and maiming several of the cadres. The national media carried photographs of dead ‘Sarbahara’ cadres hung upside down from trees.
Contrary to the image of invincibility painted by Bangladeshi intelligence agencies, LWE cadres have had very little access to sophisticated arms and ammunition and are hardly a match for either the elite RAB or the comparatively poorly equipped armed Police. Between 2005 and 2008 (till June 20), only nine SF personnel have been killed in LWE-related violence all over the country. Typical LWE operations have involved the use of locally made shutter-guns and poorly assembled low-grade explosives, which are more of instruments for eliciting compliance to extortion demands, rather than weapons of terror.
The LWE, with its existing capacity, constitutes no significant threat to Bangladesh’s security and cannot, consequently, exhaust the primary focus of SF operations. The Government, on the contrary, would do well to concentrate more on the latent activities of the Islamist extremists, whose involvement in terrorist strikes in various urban centres across India, over the past years, has grown quite frequent.
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