Creation of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh will abet radicals in India: Nahid Islam

Naming two Indian media outlets, information adviser to the interim government Nahid Islam has said “propaganda” has been going on over the mass uprising in Bangladesh.

According to him, a creation of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh will be helpful to the radicals in India, and such a propaganda might be carried out from this perspective.

Nahid Islam was speaking at a seminar on cross border spread of misinformation in South Asia at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel on Sunday, where he also condemned and protested the reports published in two Indian media outlets on Mahfuj Alam, the special assistant to chief adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

Mentioning that various kinds of negative propaganda are being carried out, Nahid Islam said, “Recently, you have seen that controversy is being created over Mahfuj Alam, one of the central figures of our movement. India’s newspaper Economic Times dubbed him as a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir without providing any evidence. We then saw a reflection of this in (a report 0f) Anandabazar Patrika. Taslima Nasrin is also speaking in the same tone. Attempts are underway to establish this narrative in the international area.”

India’s The Economic Times ran a report on the activities of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Bangladesh on 11 September.

The report also said, “Mahfuj Alam, a student leader with alleged allegiance to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, was recently appointed as special secretary to Yunus.”

Apart from this, West Bengal-based Anandabazar Patrika published a report after the chief adviser’s visit to the US. The daily said Mahfuj Alam is alleged to have involvement with Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

Mahfuj Alam, however, clarified earlier that he is involved with neither Hizb-ut-Tahrir nor Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

He wrote in a Facebook post on 14 September, “A campaign is on to stigmatise me. The Indian media outlets and the propaganda cells of the Bangladesh Awami League are claiming that I was involved in Islamic or militancy politics, specially I was involved with Hizb-ut-Tahrir. I was not involved.”

Mentioning that he was and has been against the ideologies of Hizb-ut-Tahrir and other undemocratic groups,  Mahfuj Alam added in his post, “I was not involved with Islami Chhatra Shibir either. I did not participate in their political activities. When I was a first year student at the university, they (Chhatra Shbir) had come to me and invited me to their programmes, but I did not agree with their ideological goals over Bangladesh.”

At Sunday’s event, adviser Nahid Islam said the spreading of this propaganda has doubled down since Mahfuj Alam stood with the chief adviser on the global stage and introduced the movement globally.

Saying that it is necessary to understand the motives of spreading those, Nahid Islam said, “Attempts are underway to mix up this mass uprising in Bangladesh with a type of Islamic radicalism, as well as to show that a type of Islamic radicalism has risen in Bangladesh and the mass uprising took place by them. That is not true at all. Rather, it is being engineered because we know that if Islamic radicalism is created in Bangladesh, then it will be helpful to the radicals in India.”

Adviser to the interim government, Nahid Islam, hoped the democratic people of India would also condemn and protest those reports.

“If we want to build a democratic South Asia, we must be outspoken and take a stand against such propaganda, misinformation and narrative,” he said.