Bangladesh bans Islamist group linked to blogger killings

Dhaka Bangladesh today banned an Islamist militant outfit that is believed to be behind the gruesome hacking deaths of three secular bloggers in recent months that have evoked outrage in the country and across the globeThe Bangladesh government banned Ansarullah Bangla Team ABT for its militant and antistate activities with the home ministry publishing a gazette notification in this regard It is the sixth such organisation to be outlawed for militant activitiesA Bangladeshi social activist pays his last respects to slain US blogger of Bangladeshi origin and founder of the MuktoMona Freemind blog site Avijit Roy in Dhaka on March 6 2015 after he was hacked to death by unidentified assailants in the Bangladeshi capital on February 26 Pic AFPWe had taken the decision to ban the outfit earlier this week on the basis of a police reportwe are implementing this decision today State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters The ban comes at a time when three bloggers and writers have been killed in less than three months and the Ansarullah Bangla Team is suspected to be behind the killingsEarlier this month machetewielding masked men hacked todeath 33yearold Ananta Bijoy Das a secular blogger in Sylhet city Assailants in February had killed 45year old Avijit Roy a Bangladeshiborn US national here while his wife narrowly escaped the attackA month after Roys killing another blogger Washiqur Rahman was murdered in similar fashion in Dhaka but people in the neighbourhood nabbed two suspected killers from the scene and handed them over to police Police has so far arrested several activists of ABT in connection with the murdersInvestigators earlier said they suspected that the outfit was closely linked to alQaeda Das murder was claimed by AlQaeda in the Indian Subcontinent AQIS The terror group made the claim in a post on justpasteit and ABT tweeted a link to the postTen prominent Bangladeshis including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas adviser H T Imam and Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University Professor Arefin Siddique recently received death threats and police suspected the ABT send the threat letters in the name of alQaedaAnsarullah Bangla Team is the sixth organisation to be outlawed in Bangladesh with the other five being Hizb utTahrir Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh JMB Harkatul Jihad Bangladesh Huji Jagrata Muslim Janata of Bangladesh and Shahadate AlHikmaFour members of ABT outfit have given confessional statements in blogger Rajib Haider murder case Haider was the first victim of the suspected Islamists who killed him in 2013 International security think tank Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium TRAC describes ABT as an alQaeda inspired Islamic extremist group in Bangladesh that started its activities during 2007 as the Jamaatul MusleminIt said the group was funded by different NGOs and it ceased to operate when funding ended but the outfit resurfaced during 2013 as the ABT According to TRAC the outfit is influenced by renowned extremist ideologues such as Anwar AlAwlaki and its objectives include the radicalisation of youths in Bangladesh inciting active participation in local jihad and seeking control of areas in the countryABT first came into prominence in August 2013 when police said that it planned to kill a dozen highprofile people after a hit list was seized during an investigation against the group The ban came as outrage and protests over the brutal murders of the three bloggers continues Bangladesh has also been taking the help of US Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI in Roys murder caseA twitter account in the name of Ansar Bangla 7 had described Roys murder as an achievement A great success today here in Bangladesh Target is Down it said in another tweet A series of subsequent tweets called the murder as a punishment for crime against Islam Protests were mounting across the Bangladeshi capital with civil society figures and youngsters staging rallies and major newspapers carrying editorials demanding justice for the murdered bloggersBangladesh had witnessed emergence of several Islamist militant outfits including JMB and HuJI in early 2000s when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party BNP led rightwing fourparty government with fundamentalist JamaateIslami being its major partner The situation prompted authorities to order a crackdown on the militant groups and hunt down their leaders Subsequent regimes intensified the clampdown which officials said put severe curbs on these outfitsThe militants have resurfaced particularly under the banner of ABT recently as the country witnessed political unrest from January to April when expremier Khaleda Zialed BNP launched a violent nonstop nationwide blockade that resulted in the death of nearly 130 people mostly in clandestine arson attacks on buses and trucksThe Brusselsbased International Crisis Group ICG earlier this year said the extremists and criminal networks could exploit the resulting political void caused by extreme hostility between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas ruling Awami League and her archrival Zias BNPViolent Islamist factions are already reviving threatening the secular democratic order While jihadi forces see both parties as the main hurdle to the establishment of an Islamic order the Awami League and the BNP perceive each other as the main adversary the ICG report read