Bangladesh: BNP targets Jamaat over 1971 Liberation War stance, demands apology

Dhaka, June 29 (IANS) The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government criticised the radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami over its role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan, stating that the party has yet to apologise for opposing the country’s independence and still has time to reconsider its position, local media reported.

Speaking during the parliamentary discussion on the proposed 2026-27 budget, BNP Secretary General and Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister (LGRD) Minister Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said that the opposition party Jamaat’s political path would become easier in the country if it openly clarified its stance on the 1971 Liberation War and acknowledged its role.

“For your role in 1971, you have not apologised even once. You should have apologised before the nation. Had you done so, today’s problems would not have existed. But you did not. On the contrary, your leader Golam Azam declared that in 1971 ‘we did not make a mistake’. You can even reconsider it now,” Bangladesh’s leading newspaper The Daily Star quoted Fakhrul as saying.

“You should make your position on Bangladesh clear to us, to the nation. I don’t want to go further,” he added.

Referring to the National Citizen Party’s (NCP) alliance with Jamaat, Fakhrul said that the NCP had aligned itself with a political force that did not believe in Bangladesh’s independence.

“I hope they will clarify their politics further as they move forward. These young politicians have much potential. They will do well. We want them to succeed. But they should not carry the stigma of being associated with those who denied Bangladesh’s very existence,” he noted.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed also questioned Jamaat’s role in the Liberation War and whether it could genuinely be regarded as a religious party.

Emphasising that the discussion of Jamaat’s history must also include its role in 1971, Ahmed said, “The National Freedom Fighters Council Act clearly states that the then Jamaat opposed the Liberation War. That has been settled.”

Earlier, a report in ‘Times of Bangladesh’ said that the refusal to offer a clear, unconditional apology for atrocities committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War by Pakistan and its former collaborator, Jamaat, reflects not just a historical failure but a deliberate ‘ongoing act of obfuscation’.

More than five decades later, the issue is not confined to the past but points to conscious unwillingness masked by carefully chosen languages and political convenience, the report mentioned.

It noted that Jamaat did not merely oppose Bangladesh’s independence in 1971; they sided with the Pakistani military ruler and became complicit in the machinery that brutalised millions of civilians. That is not a historical footnote but a central part of its political legacy.

–IANS

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