Why is it essential to ban Jamaat? (অয়ন এর ব্লগ থেকে অনুবাদিত)

Translated from Ayon’s Blog: http://www.sachalayatan.com/engrauyon/47986

1.

I was in fourth grade at that time. It has been just a few years after the end of the autocracy; I read a terrible news in a weekly magazine. The magazine was most probably a local newspaper in Chittagong. The news was like this – a college student was murdered by another group of students somewhere in Chittagong (most probably at Raujan, or Shatkaniya). The news article had a detailed description of how the student was murdered, and I can only remember one thing clearly; he was wrapped in a blanket and was beaten to death with iron rods. There was no visible injury from outside, but his bones were crushed from inside. Those murderers were the followers of Shibir!

2.

Often these murders and violence (like cutting veins, beatings, etc.) by Shibir are committed openly in front of many people. This whole incident happened in front of many eye witnesses; the news was published by several newspapers, but in the end it turned out that nobody “saw” anything! I was eight or nine years old at that time, and this tragic event left a deep trauma in my heart. I used to get scared hearing the name of Shibir. When a man is killing someone, he tries to get it done as quickly as possible. But this is not the case here; it's something rather strange. The striking thing is that these Shibir people deliberately planned the whole thing in cool head, and managed to arrange a blanket and iron rods. They could have shot him with a gun, stabbed him with a knife, but no, instead they chose to wrap him up in a blanket and beat him to death. Their age is in the range of 18-25. A group of such young students cold bloodedly chose the most painful death for another fellow student. They came up with this horrifying plan, and executed it! I start to feel sick whenever this memory comes back to my mind.

3.

The politics of Jamaat/Shibir is driven by some principles. We can spend a lot of time debating about the flaws in their principles. In short, that principle is created by a mother fucker named Maududi. The identity of Maududi and his evil intentions are easily accessible in internet, both in Bengali and English. Let's not go in to the details of that today. Let's instead focus on the actions of the people who believe in that principle. A lot of tragic incidents happened in 1971. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Many of them are your relatives, my relatives. Let's not even think about the incidents that happened during the entire nine months of war. Let's only look at the list of people killed on the 14th December, 1971 (http://www.cadetcollegeblog.com/muhammad/1570). The list includes names of university professors, doctors, engineers, journalists, writers, scientists, film makers, and brilliant minds from all professions. What is most striking is that the list contains names of people who had no involvements in the liberation war. Many of these people taught peacefully in the universities all the time during the war. Pakistani army had nothing against these people. Still these Jamaat leaders thought it to be essential to kill these people. Why is that? First notice that 14th December is almost near the end of the war. Pakistan was preparing to surrender. At that time, a group of young “Bengali” men started kidnapping the professors, doctors, engineers, journalists from their home. They took them blindfolded, tortured them, and then killed them in Mirpur and Rayer Bazar. It's important to know the nature of these murders. The following excerpt is taken from this blog (http://blog.bdnews24.com/nazneenkhalil/55182):

“Recount by an eye witness, ”after walking ahead a bit, I saw a dead body of a girl; her eyes are blind folded with a thin cotton towel that lies beside her. She had a sock in one of her feet. Her face and nose had been disfigured by scratches so that she couldn't be identified. She was fair and had good health. One breasts was cut off brutally. It's hard to bear even a glimpse of her. I couldn't recognize her, but later she was identified to be Selina Pervin, the editor of ‘Shilalipi’. Her relatives came to take her dead body in the afternoon.”

Another recount, “There were two dead bodies; heart was ripped off from one of them. That body was Dr. Fazle Rabbee's. --- It is still fresh. The butchers literally ripped off his heart from his chest. They did it intentionally, as they knew that he was a cardiologist.”.

Even the most disgusting criminals can’t murder people so brutally. The Al-Badrs were well aware of all the intellectuals that they murdered. Rao Forman Ali's diary had a list of all these intellectuals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_killing_of_Bengali_intellectuals#14_December_executions). Most of these intellectuals were murdered on December 14th. It's impossible for the Pakistani army to prepare such a detailed list without the help from their Jamaati collaborators. They killed Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury, S. M. Rashidul Hasan, Shahidullah Kaysar, Khondokar Abu Taleb, Abdul Alim Chowdhury, and many other brightest minds. The leaders of Islami Chhatra Shangha (of that time) Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, Meer Kashem, Md. Qamruzzaman, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, Chowdhury Moinuddin, etc. lead this massacre.

What did Jamaat gain by killing these intellectuals? Their gain was the 16 years of military rule and dictatorship. The massacre of the 14th December created a void in our intellectual leadership. The void that we couldn't recover even today. From that point of view, Jamaat was successful in their plans. But it's still not too late for us.

4.

Islami Chhatra Shibir was established in 1977 based on these ideologies of the “Islami Chhatra Shangha”. The progressive ideologies, open mindedness, and knowledge and education, and logical thinking are as intimidating to Shibir today, as it was in 1971. Many students of Chittagong College, Chittagong University, Mohsin College, Rajshahi University were either killed or became disabled by Shibir. Their ruthless style of killing people did not change much in the last 42 years. Just like 1971, they are still committing such gruesome and gore murders. In 1971, they killed people by ripping off their heart and eyes, and today they are killing with iron rods and drill machines.

Some folks compare Jamaat/Shibir with Fascism. These people need some history lessons regarding Nazis. The political ideologies of Jamaat and Nazis are quite close. This is the ideology of destroying the opposition. They consider any opposing ideologies similar to cancer, something that must be amputated before it spreads to the entire body. You can be certain that even today Jamaat/Shibir has a list of the intellectuals, just like 1971. Once that list had the names of Humayun Azad, Prof. Md. Yunus (Rajshahi University), and Dr. Taher. Today there is a cross sign beside these names. If we can't eradicate Jamaat/Shibir, then there will be cross signs beside many other names in that list. May be a hitman will stab with a dagger deep inside your kidney or heart when you'll go out for a morning walk. Then we'll perform a ritual of one minute silence, and go to work as usual. I don't want to see that Bangladesh.