The crude bomb attacks, near a function attended by the Indian envoy in Khulna, is a reminder of the dangers of messy Islamist politics in the neighbouring country and its potential fall-out on India’s improving relations with Bangladesh.
The attacks took place barely 20 metres away from where a car hired by the high commission was parked. No one from the Indian High commission was injured, said India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin in New Delhi April 13.
“As per our information, nobody involved with the High Commission was injured, nor was the car damaged in any form,” he said, adding that the car did not belong to the High Commission and was a local car hired by the Indian mission.
The High Commissioner “continued with his engagements in Khulna. Today (Saturday) he is in Jessore visiting the Ramakrishna Mission there and he will fly back to Dhaka in accordance with his pre-scheduled programme,” said the spokesperson. He added that the high commissioner “received a large number of calls conveying concern to him and assuring him that all security will be provided to him and all High Commission officials. “So, we have no cause for concern there.” The Indian High Commission is in close touch with Bangladeshi authorities who have started a probe into the outcome. “Let us wait for the outcome of those investigations before jumping to any conclusion whether this was even an attack related to the High Commission at all,” he said.
Three people were wounded when crude bombs were hurled in front of parked cars in Khulna while the Indian high commissioner was addressing a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce and Industries building. The Bangladesh police suspect the attacks to be the handiwork of cadres of the Jamaat-e-Islami, ahead of their planned general strike in Khulna district. “We suspect that activists of Jamaat-e-Islami exploded the bombs ahead of their planned general strike in the (Khulna) district to create fear among public so their programme could be enforced…we think it is a stray incident,” a police official said.
Last week, the 18-party opposition alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was enforcing the strike to protest alleged police intimidation during a rally. They were demanding the restoration of a caretaker government to oversee the election that will be held next year and were protesting against the conviction of the three of its top leaders for the 1971 war crimes.
As it’s not clear whether India was targeted by the attacks, New Delhi may not worry too much in the immediate term, but it’s time to follow closely the unfolding messy politics in the neighbouring country where Islamist radicals are vying to control mindscape of the people and to shape the outcome of the next elections.
In the last five years, during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, the India-Bangladesh relations have undergone a defining transformation, with the two countries signing a clutch of anti-terror pacts and addressing other irritants in bilateral ties in a new spirit of mutual accommodation.
But this incremental improvement in relations is in danger of being derailed by vicious and complex communal politics in the neighbouring country, which is negotiating a complex process of national reconciliation emanating from issues of justice arising from brutalities inflicted during the 1971 war. The country is also caught in the cleft of a raging debate about the role of religion in public life. “The debate is slowly shifting: from one seeking to establish criminality and justice to a wider existential debate about the role of Islam in a society where a large number of people don’t want religion to dictate how their country should be run,” writes Salil Tripathi, a columnist, in Mint.
In March, a low intensity crude cocktail bomb had exploded outside a hotel in Dhaka during President Pranab Mukherjee’s state visit amid the chaos triggered by fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami’s call for a strike to protest the conviction of three of its leaders for 1971 war crimes.
India’s political and strategic establishment should watch these developments in Bangladesh closely as they will have a bearing on the trajectory of this critical relationship, a good news story in an unpredictable neighborhood and one in which India has invested enormous diplomatic capital to turn it around.
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