Following the violent ouster of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, radical Islamist groups including Pakistan-linked Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) Bangladesh have gained power through street violence and arson. Several gruesome reports of attacks on Hindus, their houses, and their temples have surfaced as Islamist groups have been running havoc on the streets and terrorising minority communities, particularly, Hindus.
Earlier, OpIndia reported how Pakistan’s ISI, Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh JeI were the main actors that orchestrated and fueled the Hasina Out campaign in India’s neighbourhood. It is pertinent to note that JeI is a banned Islamist outfit that was responsible for the genocide of the Hindus and Bengali-speaking Muslims during the 1971 war.
The Bangladeshi branch of JeI played a vital role in forming the Pakistani army’s auxiliary forces, such as the Razakar, Al-Badr, Al-Shams, and the Peace Committee, which actively participated in atrocities against Bengali freedom fighters, especially Hindus. Hundreds of thousands of Hindu men, women, and children were massacred by JeI and its forces, while a large number of Hindu girls and women were raped.
A few years ago, the International Crimes Tribunals in Bangladesh described JeI’s role during the war of independence in 1971 as an active cohort of Pakistani occupation forces.
Strikingly, JeI was founded by Muslim Brotherhood leader Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi with the agenda of Islamic conquest and “bringing the world under the flag of Islam”. In the wake of its terror and extremist Islamist activities, the Bangladesh government banned it along with its student wing Chhatra Shibir as terrorist organisations under section 18/1 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009. However, its student wing, which is allegedly backed by Pakistan’s ISI, incited violence in the name of student protest and provoked it to turn violent and directed it against the democratically elected Sheikh Hasina government.
Its student wing fuelled unrest by openly supporting anti-government protests that provoked the recent turmoil and challenged the authorities’ efforts to maintain stability. However, it is alarming that JeI is not only active in Bangladesh, it is said to be the offshoot of parent organisation JeI Pakistan which has links with other proscribed terror organisations. It is also active in all major countries of the world including India, Europe, the UK and the USA. This dangerous Islamist terrorist entity has had a presence in Europe since the 1960s, while it has a prominent presence in the United States.
The parent Islamist organisation, Jamaat-e-Islami is based in Pakistan and there it is working as an Islamist “political party”. It is said to be the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. It was founded by Abul Ala Maududi in Lahore and soon after the partition, it split into Jamaat-e-Islami (Hind) and Pakistan.
The Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami has remained the most prominent, due to its involvement in electoral politics. In the 1950s, Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan launched a militant student wing – Islami Janiat-e-Talaba, which successfully gained control of many urban colleges and universities, often through violent tactics.
The student wing, which maintained control in many areas until 1988, marked Jamaat’s first use of violence. Jamaat-e-Islami maintains deeper links with various militancy outfits, including Gaza-based Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PJI). It also maintains deeper ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2006, JeI reportedly transferred $1,00,000 to the terror outfit, Hamas, to continue their Jihad against Jews and the State of Israel. Additionally, Rabah Times had flagged how the organisation had been working closely with the ‘Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD)’, a Muslim American charity.
Apart from terror activities, JeI funds and supports other terror outfits around the world and provokes the Islamic world, Ummah, to take action against India regarding Kashmir. JeI Pakistan had constantly invoked the International Brotherhood of Islam for the ‘Liberation’ of Kashmir. This terror outfit in Pakistan has been raising funds globally in the garb of charity for humanitarian assistance in Pakistan. Notably, in October 2022, a Diwali party was held in Brooklyn, New York to raise funds for this Pakistani jihadi outfit.
Under the pretext of raising funds for victims of flooding in Pakistan, the proceeds from the event were being funnelled to the Alkhidmat Foundation (the charity wing of the radical outfit Jamaat-e-Islami).
However, in 2021, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Siraj-ul-Haq rejected the idea of using taxpayers’ money for constructing temples in Pakistan.
Earlier OpIndia reported how the organisation is receiving funds from Saudi Arabia universities to spread radical Islam in India. Additionally, the outfit was banned in 2019 for involvement in terrorist and secessionist activities.
JeI’s terror and extremist activities in India and the impact of JeI getting mainstreamed in Bangladesh
While the social unrest and democratic collapse in Bangladesh could unfold a humanitarian crisis on the Indian border, the surge of radicalism on our Eastern front, particularly with banned Islamist groups like JeI gaining an active share in power, has added security concerns for the Indian state. The JeI is not only banned in Bangladesh, it is also banned in India and Russia.
India banned JeI in February 2019 in the wake of the terror attack in Pulwama that claimed the lives of forty paramilitary CRPF members.
Back then, the government had detained 350 leaders of the Jihadi terror outfit. Moreover, 70-Srinagar-based bank accounts were seized, assets worth Rs 52 crore were confiscated and action was initiated under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The government crackdown had also affected the separatist organisation’s 400 schools, 350 mosques and 1000 seminaries across Jammu and Kashmir. In 2019 it was estimated that Jamaat-e-Islami has properties worth Rs 4,500 crores.
This year, on 27th February, the Union Home Ministry extended the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) Jammu and Kashmir for another five years with immediate effect declaring it as an “unlawful association.”
Pursuing PM @narendramodi Ji's policy of zero tolerance against terrorism and separatism the government has extended the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami, Jammu Kashmir for five years. The organisation is found continuing its activities against the security, integrity and sovereignty of…
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) February 27, 2024
The government’s decision followed days after searches by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a terror funding case were conducted on the Jamaat-e-Islami chapter in Kashmir. More than Rs 20 lakh and incriminating documents and digital devices relating to the activities of Jamaat and its affiliated Trusts were seized during the raids conducted in Srinagar, Jammu, Budgam, Kulgam and Anantnag.
An NIA spokesperson revealed, “The investigations in the case, registered on February 5, 2021, have so far revealed that JeI and its members have continued to promote terrorist and secessionist activities in J&K even after the outfit was proscribed under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in February 2019.”
The J&K State Investigation Agency (SIA) took possession of many assets owned by the Jamaat in four districts of the Kashmir Valley in December 2022, valued at Rs 100 crore.
The radical Jamaat-e-Islami J&K has long been at the centre of the Kashmir dispute, supporting separatist ideas and contesting Indian sovereignty over the area. It adheres to the teachings of Hasan Al Banna, Syed Qutb and Maulana Maududi which state that politics and society must be in line with Sharia. It backs Pakistan’s illegal claim to Kashmir. The Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest indigenous terrorist group in Kashmir was regarded as JeI’s military wing in the 1990s. Security services suspected that even though the JeI publicly disassociated itself from the Hizbul in 1997, it is still secretly supporting the outfit.
It is said that JeI is supporting demands for secession from India, and has been supporting terrorist and separatist groups. Its notorious leaders include Abdul Hamid Fayaz, Zahid Ali, Mudasir Ahmad and Ghulam Qadir.
Apart from terror activities, JeI Hind has been fueling and attempting to mainstream radicalism and extremism in India. In October 2023, the radical Islamic organisation Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) hosted an event to show ‘solidarity’ with the Hamas terrorists who massacred hundreds of innocent civilians in Israel. The event named ‘Palestine Solidarity Convention’ was held in Muslim-majority Malappuram District in Kerala on 13th October, last year, just days after the brutal terror attack took place in Israel. The banned Jihadi outfit later justified it saying there was nothing unusual or illegal about holding an event in support of a terrorist outfit.
OpIndia had earlier reported how a Kerala-based journalist revealed that this banned Jihadi terror outfit was receiving funds from Saudi Arabia universities to ‘Islamise’ India.
Terror outfit JeI Hind and affiliated units undertaking Islamic brainwashing and orchestrating protests to Islamise India
OpIndia earlier widely reported how Jamaat-e-Islami orchestrated the hijab protests in Karnataka using foreign funds. Apart from SIMI’s offshoot PFI, Jamaat-e-Islami also played an active role during the Hijab protest in Karnataka. Incidentally, the Hijab protesters had also received backing from Pakistan branch of JeI and the nexus indicated that a meticulous plan had been hatched to instigate Muslim students in the coastal districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada to create chaos that could have eventually been used to radicalise and recruit young Muslims into their organisation.
Apart from the Islamisation of India’s educational institutions, the JeI Hind and its affiliated units in India have been holding events to radicalise Muslim youth and lure non-Muslims, particularly Hindu girls to Islam.
Incidentally, in March 2023, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind put out a poster stating that it was holding an “awareness program” for Muslims to make them “full Muslim”. The banner read, “‘poore ke poore Islam mein aa jao’ (turn fully to Islam)”. It is supposed to mean that Muslims who practice the faith but half-heartedly should embrace it fully and become ‘full Muslims’.
Additionally, in October 2022, JeI Hind organised a get-together event for ‘non-Muslim’ girls in the Karimnagar area of Telangana. However, the Telangana Police refused to grant permission for the event after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) intervened in the matter.
The radical Islamist outfit had also supported AAP councillor Tahir Hussain who was arrested in connection with the murder of Intelligence Bureau sleuth Ankit Sharma during the anti-Hindu Delhi riots. During the 2019 elections, the Jihadi terror outfit banned under UAPA had issued appeals to Muslims to cast their vote for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh.
Furthermore, following numerous arrests and busting of several Bangladesh-linked terror networks, the Indian security agencies had time and again alerted about the surge of Islamist terror outfits in Bangladesh that conspired to carry out terrorist activities in India even when pro-India Awami leader Sheikh Hasina was in power.
Now, with JeI, a banned Islamist and terror outfit, gaining power on our Eastern border, New Delhi braces itself for an alarming rise in the risk of cross-border terrorism as well as a large influx of refugees, creating a humanitarian crisis as well as a security crisis on the border. The Bangladeshi terror modules which had been attempting to carry out terror attacks in India may try to smuggle Islamist extremists as well as terrorists in the garb of Hindu refugees fleeing persecution and furthering their agenda of Islamising India through radicalism, brainwashing and increased terror activities and insurgencies on India’s eastern front.
