Panic and fear gripped Dhaka and several other parts of Bangladesh on Friday as banned terror outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir took out a massive rally in the capital signalling the fast collapsing law and order situation in the country under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.
More than a thousand operatives of the outfit brought out the procession as part of the ‘March for Khilafat’ (March for Caliphate) programme after the end of Friday prayers at the national mosque.
The event, held under the nose of law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh, reflected the free hand provided to the radical outfits under Yunus-led interim government.
In August 2024, just a few days after the ouster of Awami League Government led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, posters of banned organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir were found plastered around the broken ‘Deepto Shopoth’ sculpture which was erected in memory of the police officers killed during the terror attack at Dhaka’s Holey Artisan Bakery in 2016.
“Dear Secretary Marco Rubio, in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, head of the illegal regime, openly supports Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hizb Ut Tahrir, and Hamas. There are hundreds of students in the country who are being lured into the anti-Semite jihadist agenda,” Dhaka-based counter-terrorism expert Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury posted on X tagging the US Secretary of State.
Since the fall of Hasina’s government amid a violent mass uprising, there have been attempts to destroy various sculptures across the country.
Besides engaging in violence, Hizb ut-Tahrir members have also targetted sculptures of Bangladesh founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with many other memorials related to the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Hizb ut-Tahrir first became active in Bangladesh when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-Jamaat coalition was in power, advocating establishment of an Islamic Caliphate.
The Awami League government had banned Hizb ut-Tahrir on October 22, 2009 stating that the activities of the organisation posed a serious threat to public safety. The organisation is also banned in several other Muslim-majority countries due to allegations of spreading extremism globally, reports Dhaka Tribune.
However, as the Yunus led interim government assumed power, terror groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir have started marching openly in Bangladesh. On August 10 last year, members of the banned outfit held a procession from Baitul Mukarram to the National Press Club in Dhaka, where they also held a brief rally.
“Mr Yunus is getting mad. He lifted the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Shibir, but banned Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League, the oldest political party in Bangladesh. He lifted the ban on Islamic terrorist organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir, Ansarullah Bangla Team, etc,” noted Bangladeshi author Taslima Nareen posted on her social media, last October.
