Dhaka: Some leaders of the main
opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its radical ally
Jamaat-e-Islami have been "involved in militant activities",
the Home Minister said on Friday.
"Some leaders of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami were
found involved with militant activities when the (earlier
BNP-led) four-party alliance was in power," Home Minister
Sahara Khatun said.
She added that the Awami League led government of
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was determined to bring them to
justice "to make sure that militancy does not grow in the
country."
The ruling party has accused a section of the past
BNP regime of patronising militancy during its 2001-2006
tenure. Two junior ministers of Khaleda Zia`s government are
in jail facing trial for their alleged links to banned
Islamist groups Harkatul Jihad (HuJI) and Jamaatul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB).
Former state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar
last month reportedly claimed that Zia`s elder son Tarique
Rahman was involved in the deadly August 21, 2004 grenade
attack on Hasina` rally that killed 24 people and injured over
300.
Media reports quoting investigators said that former
junior minister for home Babar told them that Zia`s son Rahman
had asked him not take actions following the attack.
Babar had reportedly told investigators that HuJI
militants believed to be behind the attack had links with some
ministers of the past BNP-led four-party alliance government.
Police earlier said they suspected Babar to be the
mastermind of the deadly attack, while former deputy minister
Abdus Salam Pintu of BNP too await trial for his alleged
involvement in the plot.
JMB and other militant group like HuJI seemed to have
suffered a setback in view of past three years of massive
anti-militant security clampdown.
The past BNP-led government, however, earlier tried
to deny the existence of JMB and other militant outfits while
its partner Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami at that
time called them a "creation of media".
PTI
