Tags:
Journalism of Courage
As Bangladesh battles the extremist challenge,India can ill afford to remain unmoved.
As part of the process intended to bring to justice those accused of mass murder,rape,abduction and arson in collaboration with the Pakistan army in 1971,Bangladeshs top court has rejected the appeal of the Jamaat-e-Islamis Abdul Qader Mollah and increased his life sentence to the death penalty. It was dissatisfaction with the original sentence against Mollah,known as the butcher of Mirpur,that had brought protesters to the streets and swelled the crowds at Dhakas Shahbag Square earlier this year. Tuesdays development after the recent verdicts against other top Jamaat leaders like Ghulam Azam and Delwar Hossain Sayeedi,as well as the electoral ban on the Jamaat is a reminder of Bangladeshs ongoing struggle to uphold and strengthen its secular identity,a project the Sheikh Hasina government has attached the utmost priority to.
Even as Delhi insistently voices concern about the rise of fundamentalist forces across Indias western border,it seems to do nothing to acknowledge and bulwark the besieged protagonists in the battle for tolerance across the eastern border. India was party to the foundation of Bangladesh. Now,amid Dhakas biggest crisis since the bloodbaths that followed Bangladeshs independence,it cannot remain unmoved especially when Dhaka has done its bit to demolish the terrorist and insurgent machineries on Bangladeshi soil that threatened Indias security. It is not enough to blame the BJP and Mamata Banerjee for the failure on the LBA and the Teesta water-sharing respectively. The ruling UPA should push harder to convince parties of the national imperative that underlies the two pacts.
