Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir have no relation with al-Qaeda, the Islamist party said Sunday.
Its assertion comes after al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri reportedly called for jihad in Bangladesh to resist ‘anti-Islam forces’ in an audio message released on a website.An audio tape said to be carrying a message from Zawahiri is circulating on the Internet, calling on Muslims in Bangladesh to start an uprising. It also says the idea of the Bengali nation has not worked out.
Jamaat’s acting Secretary General Shafiqur Rahman in a statement on Sunday expressed alarm over news published in different media ‘associating Jamaat with the audio message’.
On Saturday, Hifazat-e Islam, the Islamist organisation, had already denied involvement with the purported al-Qaeda call.
Speaking in Arabic on the tape, Zawahiri, an Egyptian-born surgeon, derides the Bangladesh government for being anti-Islam and secular.
The terror outfit’s outrage at the trial of the Jamaat-e-Islami leaders is palpable. The reported al Qaeda message shares Jamaat’s allegation that the ongoing war crimes trial only aims to harass Islamic scholars.
Zawahiri alleged in the message that ‘thousands of Muslims were massacred in Bangladesh’, referring to last year’s May 5 police action at a Hifazat rally in Dhaka.
Shafiqur Rahman said the information published in one or two news media linking Jamaat to al-Qaeda were ‘completely bogus’.
“We want to say, in unequivocal terms, al-Qaeda has no relationship with Jamaat and Chhatra Shibir. On the contrary, we despise terrorism of any kind with all our hearts,” the statement said.
“Jamaat and Chhatra Shibir have no association with any terrorism, militancy or illegal activities. Jamaat is pursuing a movement to spread and uphold its political ideology by constitutional, democratic means.”
The purported al-Qaeda message says the only fault of those being ‘persecuted and killed on the streets’ in Bangladesh is ‘that they had stood up against a secular government and anti-Islamists’.
The Jamaat leader said the introduction of the said al-Qaeda message was a conspiracy against ‘religious people’ in Bangladesh.
“Jamaat’s political ideology and activities are clear to the public eye,” he said and alleged that ‘all this talk of terrorism and militancy’ was an excuse for some to persecute and torture Islamists in Bangladesh.
“We call on the patriotic people of our country to be aware and alert against any conspiracy in the name of militancy, terrorism and fundamentalism,” he said.-bdnews24.com
