Jamat-e-Islami suffers drubbing in B'desh polls
DHAKA, Dec 30 (Agencies): Fundamentalist Jamat-e-Islami (JI), a crucial ally of former premier Khaleda Zia's BNP-led four-party alliance, on Tuesday suffered a drubbing with all party stalwarts biting the dust in the General Elections.
JI, which opposed the Bangladesh's 1971 independence war and sided with the Pakistani troops, won only two seats in the 300-member Parliament compared to 20 in the last polls in 2001, while its chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid conceded defeat.
"The anti-liberation forces have been defeated once again, this time through peoples' verdict," the Daily Star commented in a report titled 'Jamaat in jeopardy'.
"While it is a sweet revenge for Bangladeshis against the war criminals, the verdict will make stronger the demand for their trial." Most political analysts attributed JI's debacle on the intensified campaign for the trial of 1971 war criminals' launched by the Sector Commanders Forum, a grouping of veterans of the Liberation War, backed by India, as the country celebrated its 37th victory anniversary ahead of the polls on December 16.
Analysts said the campaign particularly influenced the young voters, 33 percent of whom voting for the first time, as they spread the campaign for the trial of 1971 war criminals through cell phone messages and internets.
Nizami and Mojahid led the so-called elite Al-Badr forces in 1971 while the Gestapo like outfit is widely believed to have killed frontline intellectuals after abducting them in an effort to cripple the emerging nation intellectually just two days ahead of their defeat on December 16 in 1971.
Several analysts and even BNP activists said BNP-led alliance conceded a humiliating defeat bagging only 31 seats as the party allied with JI partly shouldering its 1971 misdeeds.
The Sector Commanders' Forum last month published a primary list of the 1971 war criminals.
The forum carried out massive campaign against across the country in the past two month asking people to boycott the "anti-liberation" forces.
"The pro-liberation and anti-liberation forces can't co-exist," chief coordinator of the SCF and former Army Chief retired Lt General Harunur Rashid had told reporters.
Demands for the trial of the war criminals resurfaced in the past one year after Mojahid commented that the "anti-liberation forces never existed" as he denied his party's role in 1971.
The subsequent comments by another JI leader calling the Liberation War a "civil war" intensified the public outrage prompting the independent election commission to agree in principle to ban "religion-based politics" and bar them from taking part in polls though they were eventually allowed to take part in the polls, believed to be on critical political consideration.
Chief Adviser of the outgoing interim government Fakhruddin Ahmed earlier said his caretaker administration would welcome legal moves by aggrieved persons for trial of the 1971 war criminals as major parties demanded their trial and disqualification for polls.
More than three million people lost their lives and thousands of women were tortured during the liberation war that saw the emergence of independent Bangladesh.
After the independence, JI and other religion-based parties were constitutionally banned in Bangladesh till 1976 but they were allowed to resume activities after the August 15, 1975 change, when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed along with most of his family members.