The political leader of the militant Islamist group, Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) confessed to being directly responsible for the attempted assassination on the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh in August 21, 2004, when she was the opposition leader to the BNP led alliance. That attack killed 20 and injured at least 300 individuals.
After being detained for 15 days, Sheikh Abdus Salam, the founder of banned the Islamist group Harkatul Jihad al Islami, not only confessed to the attack, but also named top leaders of the group who were involved and furthermore laid out in clear language the cause and manner of the group’s founding. As The Daily Star reports:
“He said he returned to Bangladesh after the end of Afghan war against erstwhile Soviet Union and formed Huji along with other veterans of the war.”
“He confessed to having trained many youths, mainly madrasa students, in operating firearms and bombs. Apart from Bangladeshis, most of their recruits came from the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, he said.”
“They had also mobilised funds, arms and ammunition for insurgents in Kashmir.”
Interesting, Sheikh Salam also admitted that HUJI had also planned to assassinate Sheikh Hasina during her previous tenure in power during 1996 to 2001. The reason: her administration was thought to be an obstacle to inter-regional cooperation between groups to engage in militant activity, like training operatives and procuring weapons from similarly engaged groups in India and Afghanistan.
Sheikh Salam’s confession implies that there is a sentence he has left un-uttered. Perhaps it is the following: “The BNP led government offered no such obstacle.” This would be too clean an admission. At any rate, the trail has led all the way up to the leadership of HUJI and other, similar groups. This is stunning success by any measure. A terrorist organization has been gutted. Now, if ruling partisans hope that investigators might soon knock on Begum Khaleda Zia’s door, I suspect they’d find that the trail has dried up.