Pakistan Conflict Monitor

Bangladesh Tribunal Issues Jamaat-e-Islami Warrants

Bangladesh Islamic Party Leaders Face New Charges, The Washington Post, 26 July 2010

EXCERPT: "A special tribunal in Bangladesh issued arrest warrants against four senior leaders of the country's largest Islamic party on Monday ahead of a planned trial over alleged crimes against humanity during the nation's 1971 independence war. Suspects including Jamaat-e-Islami party chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and his senior party colleagues Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Abdul Quader Mollah and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman were arrested earlier on various charges including attacking police and blaspheming Islam. [...] The government set up the tribunal in March to prosecute people accused of collaborating with the Pakistani army in killings and other crimes during the 1971 war that culminated in Bangladesh ceding from Pakistan and winning independence. [...] According to official Bangladesh figures, Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during a bloody nine-month guerrilla war. Police say most of the suspects are from Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed the battle for independence and sided with Pakistan. India backed those seeking independence."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal issues first warrants, Hindustan Times, 26 July 2010
ISI spreads its net in the north-east region, Sify News, 26 July 2010

Related posts:
Pakistan based terror group exposed in Bangladesh, 4 March 2010
Arrests show growing internationalism of Pakistani militant groups, 10 December 2009

Unofficial Healthcare Discrimination against Bengalis

Unofficial Healthcare Discrimination against Bengalis, IRIN News, 7 April 2010

EXCERPT: "All housemaid Shehr Bano needed to survive the late stages of Hepatitis B was good palliative care. But despite having an official Pakistani national identity card (NIC), her Bengali origin and meagre income meant she could not get treatment and she died in August 2009. Her husband and children are all Hepatitis positive but have no means of getting treatment and continue doing their day-to-day odd jobs. Accounts of Bengali Pakistanis being turned away from public hospitals and clinics are common. It is not officially condoned by any means, but rather an underlying prejudice against this ethnic group by some health workers, experts say. 'A lot of it has to do with the mindset of people in power and that is what trickles down,' Muhammad Kamran, a community worker in Karachi, said. [...] Abdul Majeed Chutto, programme manager for HPCP in Sindh Province, told IRIN the programme treats each and every citizen as equal, and there is no bias on the basis of language or ethnicity. 'All Pakistanis are eligible for treatment under the hepatitis control programme. As far as the question of being a 'valid' citizen is concerned, we do ask the patients to provide a copy of their NIC or CNIC so as to ascertain which area they reside in and then we refer them to a public facility there,' he said. 'However, at the end of the day, it’s our aim to treat the maximum number of people and I stand by my word when I say we do so without any discrimination.' Jamal (not his real name), who works at the Lyari General Hospital in Karachi, confirmed there was no official policy of discrimination against Bengalis but that it happened frequently nonetheless."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Stateless and desperate: Pakistan's forgotten Bengalis, Asia Calling, 25 October 2009

Related reports:
RRT Research Response [pdf], Refugee Review Tribunal Australia, 20 February 2008; Answers two questions: 1. Are those of Bengali origins included as Mohajirs? and 2. Have Pakistanis with Bengali origins who are not politically active faced serious harm or discrimination in the last five years in Karachi or elsewhere in Pakistan?

Related posts:
"Critical differences" between Baloch and Bangladeshi separatism, 19 January 2010

Pakistan-based Terror Group Exposed in Bangladesh

Another Pakistan-based Terror Group Exposed in Bangladesh [op-ed], Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 4 March 2010

EXCERPT: "In continuing action against terror the Shaikh Hasina government in Bangladesh has arrested five Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists. Though this action will give a setback to terrorist groups operating from Bangladesh, it has also raised concerns about the actual scale of the operations of Pakistan-based terrorist groups in that country. The arrests were made by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) of Bangladesh from Dhaka on February 28, 2010. One of the arrested persons is a Pakistani national while the other four are his local associates. They are linked to the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed... These arrests have highlighted many issues. In the ongoing crackdown against terror in Bangladesh, a large number of extremists have been arrested. Only last year, security agencies had unearthed a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) module which was planning to attack the Indian high commission and the US embassy in Dhaka... These arrests have also underlined the lack of cooperation among security agencies in South Asia."

Read the full article [op-ed].

Related articles:
Bangladesh arrest underlines continued jihadist threat, The Hindu, 3 March 2010
Pakistani among 5 JeM militants held in Dhaka, The Hindu, 2 March 2010
Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed are back in business [blog], The Long War Journal, 30 October 2009

Related reports:
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of the Prophet), South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2009

Related posts:
Punjabi Taliban and the sectarian groups in Pakistan, 19 February 2010
Testimony of Steve Coll before the the House Armed Services Committee: The paradoxes of Al-Qaeda, 28 January 2010
Arrests show growing internationalism of Pakistani militant groups, 10 December 2009

"Critical Differences" Between Baloch and Bangladeshi Separatism

Balochistan is no Bangladesh [Comment], Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 19 January 2010

EXCERPT: "The separatist sentiment sweeping through the province of Balochistan has led many in Pakistan to draw parallels with the situation that prevailed in East Pakistan and which ultimately culminated in the formation of an independent state, Bangladesh. But such parallels, while they sensationalize the issue of Balochistan and help to draw attention to it, tend to gloss over some very critical differences between the situation that existed in the erstwhile East Pakistan and what obtains in today’s Balochistan. More than the similarities, which are many, between East Pakistan of yore and Balochistan of today, it is the differences that stand in the way of Balochistan becoming another Bangladesh. Like in East Pakistan, the alienation of the people in the Baloch populated areas of Balochistan with Pakistan appears to be near total. There is an accumulated sense of grievance that is increasingly being expressed in the desire for seceding from the federation."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Ministers walk out of Balochistan Assembly over Khuzdar killings, Daily Times, 19 January 2010
Senators condemn efforts to sabotage Balochistan package, The News International, 19 January 2010
38,000 Baloch youth apply for jobs, DAWN, 18 January 2010
Four Punjabi settlers killed in Balochistan, Daily Times, 17 January 2010
Strike in Balochistan over Karachi target killings, DAWN, 15 January 2010
List of 42 missing Baloch handed over to Malik, DAWN, 14 January 2010

Related posts:
Balochistan assessment: 2010, 26 December 2009
Strategic Balochistan becomes a target in war against Taliban, 22 December 2009
Balochistan: A hotbed of militancy, 4 December 2009
Balochistan: Govt ready to talk, army pulling out, 9 December 2009
Reforms for insurgency-hit province unveiled, 24 November 2009