Bangladesh’s Anti-Discrimination Students Movement today commemorated the death anniversary of former Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JeI) Naib Amir Delwar Hossain Sayeedi on its official Facebook page, indicating that the protesting students are deeply associated with the fundamentalist organisation.
Sayeedi was branded by the recently ousted Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina as a “war criminal” for his participation in the atrocities committed by the JeI during the 1971 liberation war which the Islamist organisation had opposed.
Born on February 2, 1940, Sayeedi was elected as an MP from Pirojpur constituency in 1996. Sayeedi died in Kashimpur Central Jail on August 14, 2014, after the death sentence passed on him by an International Crimes Tribunal was overturned to “life imprisonment until death”.
However, seven other then JeI leaders were hanged.
An International Crimes Tribunal set up in 2009 by the then Sheikh Hasina regime found Sayeedi guilty on eight of 20 counts, ranging from murder, rape and religious persecution of Bangladesh’s minorities. He was sentenced to death, but the verdict led to massive violence and protests across Bangladesh.
International human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch, which had initially backed the ICT’s establishment, later attacked it for lack of fairness and transparency.
Amnesty International too had criticised the tribunal for not following international standards and due processes while trying and sentencing the JeI leaders.
Lamenting Sayeedi’s absence “today” – during the course of the students’ movement which led to a violent crackdown by the Hasina regime and the subsequent round of clashes that caused the death of nearly 200 people, including a large number of policemen – the Facebook post also carried the former JeI leader’s photograph.
Northeast News had earlier reported that the students’ movement was clandestinely backed, supported and fueled by US security agencies.
While the US State Department denied news reports to this effect across a wide spectrum of the Indian media, there is credible evidence to suggest that secret meetings were held between American officials and some Bangladeshi university teachers.
Indeed, Indian and Bangladeshi security officials said, US diplomats based in Dhaka communicated clandestinely with JeI leaders and secretly met with some Dhaka University professors who provided leadership to the students before the violent events that stretched from July 14 to August 8.
These meetings began as early as September-October 2023 and continued after the January 7 so-called elections.
Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence agency reports also revealed the involvement of not only the JeI but also the banned organisation’s students’ wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir.
Besides, training was imparted to a large group of students at locations in Dhaka, including private university campuses and other establishments.
Even as there is evidence of JeI and Shibir’s involvement in the deadly attacks between August 5 and 8, there is wide support across Bangladesh for the students and subsequent establishment of the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government.
A Bangladeshi political analyst, who preferred anonymity, said that the support for the Jamaat and Shibir stemmed from the massive countrywide anger against “an unpopular” Hasina and the Awami League.
This analyst said that not only “has anti-India sentiments peaked across Bangladesh”, some members of the interim government “now foster strong action directed at India’s northeast”.
