Religious Militancy in Bangladesh (2013-2016)

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue VI, June 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Religious Militancy in Bangladesh (2013-2016)

Mohd Amdadul Haque, Sadia Afrin and Foisal Ahmed
Lecturer, Political Science at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science & Technology University, Gopalganj-8100, Bangladesh

Abstract: Religious militancy has come into focus all over the world after the attacks of the Al Qaeda in 2001 in New York. Militancy denotes the activities of individuals, groups or parties to engage in violence with a particular ideological purpose. Religiously inspired violent extremism and militancy emerged in Bangladesh only in the mid-1990s. But during 2001 to 2006, militancy in Bangladesh got a profound root through links and networks with global militant organizations. After a short break the issue of militancy again has come into forefront in 2013 with old and new networks following the wave of transnational trend. Militant organizations attacked bloggers, foreigners, atheists, priests, non-Muslims and other targeted individuals. Militant attacks and atrocities vehemently attracted global media. However, this paper is an attempt to examine whether there is militancy in Bangladesh or not with the nature of militant attacks and extent of the activities of militant gangs in Bangladesh during the period of 2013 to 2016.

Keywords: Militancy, Global Militant Organizations, Religious Militancy

I. INTRODUCTION

Religious militant groups in Bangladesh emerged in the mid-1990s which have undergone several transformations. Originally they grew out of the volunteers who joined the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, ‘five generations of Bangladeshi militant groups’ (Riaz, A. 2016:4-6) appeared on the scene. Militant groups showed their signs of revival with a full swing in the years from 2013 to 2016. Based on various literatures, militants from at least two banned outfits, namely Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), revived in this period with organizational capability and involved with targeted assassinations involving individuals whom they consider apostates or obstacles to establishing an Islamic State in Bangladesh. The escalation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) further led to increasing militant activism in Bangladesh. Both AQIS and ISIS claimed their presence in the country during this period. The ABT claimed to be the Bangladesh unit of the AQIS and took responsibility for the murders of several atheist bloggers, intellectuals, secular activists, religious and sectarian minorities. Since then Bangladesh attracted international media attention for heightened militant activities. Global media highly covered the militant attacks that pressed widespread security concerns about visiting Bangladesh. These incidents took place at the heel of the Global Terrorism Index’s (GTI, 2015) assessment that the country was ‘vulnerable to high terrorism risk’ (Global Terrorism Index 2015). The GTI score of the country was already on the rise from an historic low of 4.1 in 2012 to 5.47 in 2013 to 5.92 in 2014. Bangladesh faced the largest bloody militant attack on first July 2016 at Holey Artisan Cafe in Dhaka at Gulshan scored the death of 29 people (foreigners, police officers, gunmen, and bakery staff). Gulshan is the heart of the diplomatic zone and this incident impacted Bangladesh’s relations with countries and development partners. Bangladesh had to go through a tough examination after the dreadful attack. However, this increasing trend compels the necessity to study the causes and factors responsible for the rise of religious militancy during the timeframe. ‘Why has religious militancy revived during the period of 2013 to 2016?’ is the key question of the study.

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