There has been a surge in radical Islam in Bangladesh since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government and the formation of an interim government to run the country. Taking advantage of the political vacuum in the absence of an elected government, radical Islamic groups that had hitherto been lying low are consolidating power.
The release of Islamic radicals and terrorists from prison has helped Islamic fundamentalists to consolidate their position. Some of them have escaped from prison, too, taking advantage of the anarchy in the wake of the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government.
Several radical elements, including Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) Chief Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent leader Ikramul Haque, Jamat-ul-Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya Chief Shamim Mahfuz and Sheikh Aslam, a notorious criminal, are now out in the open.
Al-Qaeda linked groups like ABT, Harkat-ul-Jihadal-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) and Jamaat-ulMujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) have revived their activities since the fall of the Awami League government and increased their footprints.
Some of these Islamic fundamentalist groups, the leaders of which have now been set free, pose a significant threat to Bangladesh and its neighbouring countries. The Jamaat-ul-Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya (JAFHS) is one such group with advanced asymmetric combat capabilities and sophisticated operational tactics. Well-funded, with access to local and foreign sources, the JAFHS were formed in 2017 by leaders of older Al Qaeda – centric terrorist groups in Bangladesh while imprisoned in a high-security jail. Since the formation of the interim government, the JAFHS has been involved in fund-raising, acquisition of weapons and propaganda. Its recruits have received training from the Al Qaeda–linked Ansar al Islam, with links to Iraq and Syria. They want to establish a caliphate in Bangladesh and extend the activities to India and Myanmar through armed struggle; eastern India being a key target area.
Islamic radicals have been operating freely in Bangladesh now. The online edition of BD Digest on February 13, 2025, carried the rather shocking photograph of Chief Advisor of interim government of Bangladesh Mohammed Yunus, with the second most important leader of the banned JMB Golam Sarwar Rahat on a visit to ‘Aynaghar,’ an alleged secret detention centre in Dhaka. In 2014, Rahat was accused of organizing a jail-break in which three JMB terrorists escaped and a police constable was killed.
Since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024, the JMB has deepened its organizational activities, and is planning to align with the Hefazat-e-Islam, numerically the largest Islamic fundamentalist group in Bangladesh, which was formed in 2010 to oppose the planned Women Development Policy of 2009 that proposed equal inheritance rights for women. On October 24 this year, Hefazat-e-Islam activists held a large rally at Chittagong town demanding that the International Society for Krishna Consciousness be banned in Bangladesh.
Representatives from Pakistan were reported to have attended recent meetings of Hefazat. The Jamaat-e-Islami has also become more active since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government and wants to establish an Islamic state in Bangladesh under the leadership of its chief (Ameer) Shafiqur Rahman.
Hefazat-e-Islam is working with Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh to establish a common platform for Islamic groups in Bangladesh. Jamaat Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar has denied anti-Jamaat sentiments in Hefazat, saying: “The Ameer of Hefazat is a respected and learned scholar. We honour him. The entire Islamic ‘ummah’ (community of Muslims) sincerely wants unity among Islamic parties.”
The Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a transnational radical Islamic organization that had played a key role in the regime change in Bangladesh, has emerged from the shadows to organize demonstrations like the ‘March for Khilafat’ rally in Dhaka on March 7, 2025. Banned in Bangladesh since October 2009 for posing a threat to national security, Hizb-ut-Tahrir seeks to unite Muslims in a pan-Islamic state through purportedly peaceful means. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has been banned in India, too.
The presence of nearly 1.3 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh is an added cause of concern. They are vulnerable to radical ideas and potential targets of terrorist groups. The Pakistan-backed Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a Rohingya terrorist organization, is trying to gain control over refugee camps in Bangladesh to build cadres of radicalized Rohingyas. Its leader, Ata Ullah, was born in Pakistan.
In another disconcerting development, the Bangladesh Ministry of Youth and Sports has started to train 8,850 youths in the age group of 18 to 35 years in the use of firearms and martial arts. The declared purpose of the programme is to strengthen national defence and promote self-discipline among the youths. But reports suggest that the real motive is to set up a militia named the Islamic Revolutionary Army. Some army officers with pro-Pakistan leanings are reported to be associated with the training. The participants will receive professional instructions in karate, judo and taekwondo; besides in the handling of firearms.
Significantly, Hindu youths have been kept out of the purview of the military training, adding credence to reports that it is a move to set up an Islamic army free from Hindus. One of the advisors in the Mohammed Yunus government announced in a Facebook post on October 20 that the Ministry of Youth and Sports had launched such a nationwide programme to train youths in firearms across seven training centres. According to information, the plan is eventually to train a total of 40,000 youths in the use of firearms.
This will help set up a trained force capable of operating the heavy weapons looted from different sources like police stations during the anarchy that had followed the departure of Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh, information from Dhaka indicates. Some Islamist groups and some former army officers close to them have been trying to set up an Islamic militia.
Notably, the move to train youths in the handling of weapons has come in the wake of the International Crimes Tribunal on October 22, sending 15 serving military officers to jail to face trial for enforced disappearance, murder and custodial torture during the regime of Sheikh Hasina. Bangladeshi observers see in this a conspiracy to weaken the army and a parallel move to set up an Islamic militia; to try to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state with a rogue army.
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With the rise in fundamentalist Islamic forces after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government, Bangladesh is set to lose its identity as a moderate Muslim country. The proliferation of fundamentalist Islamic thought can only be prevented if the elections promised to be held in February next bring to power in Dhaka a moderate political party.
