The Bangladeshi government has launched a massive socio-political campaign to educate people and closely monitor extremism militant activities at the grass roots level, leading English-language newspaper The Daily Star reported on Monday.

In the campaign, involving 14 different agencies and spearheaded by the state minister for home affairs, the government has taken up various innovative initiatives to make people aware about the destructive nature of extremism. The initiatives include holding campaigns, screening documentaries, training imams of mosques, organizing anti-militant campaigns at all level of the people.

The drive which led by a high-powered committee formed in 2007 was the culmination of initiatives by various agencies that have opined that armed drives against the militant was not enough to uproot or contain militant threats.

Other members of the committee were secretaries of the ministries of home, education, law, religious affairs, social welfare, Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD), and information, the inspector general of police, chiefs of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, Bangladesh Rifles, Ansar and VDP, National Security Intelligence and Rapid Action Battalion and the director general of Prime Minister's Office.

About 350,000 strong Bangladesh Ansar, the rural paramilitary troop, and Village Defense Party (VDP) were heavily involved for the first time as the networks of the two agencies are spread even to the remotest parts of the country where neither Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) nor police have regular access.

Each of these ministries and authorities has been given specific tasks. For instance, the religious affairs ministry will assign the Islamic Foundation to motivate imams against the militant while the LGRD ministry will discuss the issue of the militant at the meetings of district and law and order committees.

The foreign ministry, although not a part of the committee, has been given the task to brief and update the international communities, donors and development partners about the government's positive steps to eradicate the militant.

Under the initiative, imams will be trained to present sermons against the militant prior to Juma prayers. "This has already begun in Dhaka and some other parts of the country," said Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder.

Another aspect of the drive was to involve unemployed youths in various development work and different trades through small loans. Religious educational institutions will be closely monitored.

"The militant has now become a social problem that cannot be contained by only Rab or police or journalists," said Rab's intelligence wing Director Commander MAK Azad. "This needs an all-out socio-political drive."

The 9,000-strong Rab has been spearheading the anti-militant drive following the countrywide explosions carried out by the outlawed militant outfit JMB on Aug. 17, 2005. As of now it has arrested 516 JMB members including 10 top leaders and its chief of information technology. The Rab also arrested six Harkat-ul-Jihad members, who wanted to establish strict Islamic rule in Bangladesh.

Rab's legal and media wing Deputy Director Shakhawat Hossain noted that the country's poor socio-economic condition and religious sensitivity made its people vulnerable to religious exploitations. The exploiters also interpret national interests to best suit their purpose as the nation was also politically sharply divided. In such a situation, the country remains a breeding ground of militants, that needs to be dealt with from various fronts.

Source: Xinhua