Shamima Choudhury
At the encouragement of the interim government of Dr. M. Yunus, a new innovative politics has emerged in Bangladesh and it is popularly known as the “Bulldozer Politics”.
What is Bulldozer Politics?
A bulldozer politics is if anyone speaks against the interim government or anyone belonging to the past government of Sheikh Hasina make any noise, then young jehadis of the current Yunus government or the employers of Dr. Yunus as the Chief Advisor would vandalize or bulldoze the private properties of that individual. At times young activists of the BNP party, the Jubo Dal also take this advantage against their target enemies.
How the bulldozer politics started
When the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina planned to speak to her party workers from exile via YouTube on the historic 7th March, the young bulldozer party belonging to the leaders of anti-discrimination uprising joined by Chatra Shibir activists of the Jamatee Islam party vandalized and the bulldozed Sheikh Hasina’s father’s house; the historic house of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a national museum of Bangladesh independence.
Bangabandhu launched his independence movement of Bangladesh against the tyranny of the occupation forces of Pakistani in 1971 from this house. He launched his six-point program to end income disparity between East and West Pakistan from the same house. After the independence of Bangladesh, as he was a simple man, he lived in his own house instead of moving to an official residence. He was murdered in 1975 along with 16 of his close family members in this same house including his 10-year old son. His two daughters were abroad and therefore , they escaped death.
When his daughter Sheikh Hasina returned to Bangladesh from exile in 1981 they donated the house and it became the national museum of Bangladesh independence. It had rich historic and rare memories and memorabilia that were useful for future researchers. Since Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Awami League party (AL), the oldest and largest political party of Bangladesh became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh in 1996, this house was being managed by a trust.
Bulldozer group also looted, vandalized and bulldozed Sheikh Hasina’s late husband’s private house plus private houses and offices of nearly 135 political leaders of the past AL government. Interestingly, while they were bulldozing these properties, the police and other law enforcement agencies were simply onlookers and the bulldozer party of Dr. Yunus used the government bulldozers to bulldoze the properties. Till today not a single member of the bulldozer party has been arrested.
Action speaks Louder: Does the Yunus government support the bulldozers?
When a Bulldozer group went to loot and bulldoze the private house of a former AL Minister in Gazipur at late night, the neighborhood people believed them as dacoits and hijackers and they resisted them.
The nation’s police force highly demoralized
Since the nation’s police force are highly demoralised as hundreds of them were brutally murdered by the goons of the anti-discrimination movement and as the Yunus government announced “indemnity” to the murderers, that no one can seek justice against the killers, the police are highly demoralized and basically non-functioning. As a result, in each neighborhood, the local residents formed groups to protect their properties. In Gazipur such a neighborhood group resisted the hijakers that went to loot the house of a former Minister.
Draconian Operation Devil Hunt
As the neighborhood people resisted to bulldoze the private residence of a former AL Minister, the current Home Adviser of Dr. Yunus, Lt. Gen. Alam Chowdhury immediately launched a deadly “Operation Devil Hunt” to detain anyone belonging to the past government and to protect the Bulldozer group. Although the total nation’s prison capacity is only 42,000, the Director General of Prisons reported that over 74,000 are being detained in jails now. In order to make room for the new detainees, the Yunus government released a few thousand regular prisoners among which there were many deadly terrorists and radical jehadis.
Bangladesh: Becoming a Hub for Jehadis
Since the convicted terrorists and jehadis have been released, they organized street rallies under the banner of the “Hizbut Tahir”, a banned terrorist organisation linked to Al-Qadea and they demanded to establish the Muslim Caliphate in Bangladesh. None of the terrorists that were released have been arrested yet. However, as it drew some international media attention, the government assured that they would be arresting the terrorists.
Yunus’ Judiciary: a Vehicle of Extortion
Being afraid of arrests and humiliation, thousands of AL leaders left the country and are now living abroad in exile as fugitives from justice. The interim government filed nearly 28,000 false murder cases against nearly 300,000 supporters of the past AL government. Filing of such fraudulent murder cases are mainly to extort money. The complainants generally charge taka 50,000 to 50 lakhs to drop the name of an individual from the murder charges depending on his or her status. If someone is a diaspora living abroad or relatively wealthy or politically powerful, then the price tag is higher. In many instances, even cases have been filed against dead people or people who have been living abroad during the last year’s uprising. Police know it, the Home Advisor, the Law Advisor and also the Chief Justice know it. Yet none take any positive actions to withdraw the false cases.
Recently the Law Adviser just dropped nearly 6,500 cases out of 16,000 against those that were filed during the past governments in 2001-06, 2007-08 and 2009-24, but not those false cases that were filed after the uprising. The government is showing the world that they are aware of false cases and are taking care of it which is a lie. In fact, not a single fraudulent case filed after the August uprising has been withdrawn.
It is reported that the Law Adviser’s office charges a hefty bribe for dropping each case. Currently nearly 4.5 million cases are pending for judgement.
Gift of Eid messages: Bulldozer politics
During the last Eid festival, a couple of AL leaders sent messages to their party supporters in Sylhet. The elected Mayor of Sylhet City, Anwaruzzaman Chowdhury now exiled in London, former State minister Shafiqur Rahman, now exiled in London and members of the Bangladesh Parliament, Shofiul Alam Nadel and Ronjit Sarker now living in exile in Kolkata (India) sent Eid greetings via social media. A few of their supporters, excited to receive a message after almost 7 months, took out a motorbike rally in order to celebrate the Eid festival. The bulldozer party got upset at it as they thought they were getting organized and they immediately vandalized and bulldozed the private properties and residences of said leaders plus a few others. While they were vandalizing, the law enforcement agencies stood by as helpless onlookers. However, now to avoid any reprisals both the police and the military are patrolling the city. In the meantime, the bulldozer party leaders announced that if anyone speaks against the government from exile their properties would be bulldozed. Since Dr. Yunus and the military dictator of Myanmar Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and other Heads of the BIMSTEC attending it’s Summit in Bangkok, his office are yet to make any statement on this bulldozer politics.
New lesson: Those who would do politics must build their house abroad
The bulldozer politics is alerting the politicians that if you plan to be involved in Bangladesh politics, then you must not own or build properties in Bangladesh. Whenever there would be a change of government, their properties are likely to be bulldozed and vandalized. Now the AL leaders are being victimised. Who could be the next? The good news is; most of the leaders of the Yunus government have their private properties abroad and not in Bangladesh and most of them have foreign nationality also. So their properties cannot be vandalized nor can they be detained. For example, his top officials like Dr. Ali Reaz or Dr. Badiul Alam Majumder or Dr. Khalilur Rahman. They are all American citizens and their houses are in Chicago, Seattle and New York respectively. Kamal Ahmed is a British citizen and his State Minister of Finance Moyen is an Australian national and their houses are abroad. Dr. Yunus also mostly lives abroad in New Jersey. His Law Adviser Asif Nazrul reportedly has sent his wife and family to the USA. His technocrat advisers Wahiududdin Mahmud and Salehuddin Ahmed have US Green Cards. Their sons and families live in the USA. Yunus Advisers Adilur Khan and Rezwana Hasan are US agents and ex-US Ambassador Peter Haas is their best friend.
However, the lesson of the innovative bulldozer politics is “don’t own properties in Bangladesh if you would like to do politics in Bangladesh. Secondly, to be safe, follow the Interim government leaders and get a foreign citizenship”.