Menon claims BNP-Jamaat created New JMB for assassinations

By Mohammad Abu Bakar Siddique in Dhaka Tribune, Mar 7, 2017
Worker’s Party President Rashed Khan Menon claimed on Monday that the BNP-Jamaat alliance had created terrorist outfit New JMB, a new faction of banned group JMB affiliated with Islamic State, for carrying out secret assassinations across Bangladesh.
“Neo JMB [also known as New JMB] proved its existence through the Holey Artisan Bakery attack at Gulshan in Dhaka,” he said while taking part in the general discussion on thanksgiving motion of President Abdul Hamid’s address to the Jatiya Sangsad on January 22.
The minister claimed that the BNP-Jamaat nexus had patronised anti-liberation forces, JMB founder Shayakh Abdur Rahman and second-in-command Bangla Bhai, which paved the way for the rise of militancy in the country.
“They created Neo JMB to carry out militant attacks and secret killings,” he said.
The Worker’s Party president stressed the need for building a mass awareness campaign against militancy and terrorism under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“The people of Bangladesh are quite aware of the anarchy unleashed by the BNP-Jamaat,” he added, referring to arson attacks carried out by the faction before and after the January 2014 general elections.
Menon said that the next general elections would be held in 2019 as per the constitution and under the present government, adding that there was no point to including BNP in the election-time government as “the party does not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Election Commission.”
Echoing Worker’s Party General Secretary Fazle Hossain Badsha, who spoke on Sunday in parliament, Menon also suggested that attempts by fundamentalists to communalise Bangladesh had to be resisted.
Pointing at Hefazat-e-Islami’s role behind the recent changes in textbooks and their demand to remove the Lady Justice sculpture from the Supreme Court premises, Menon said that compromises with the fundamentalists would only lead to further demands.
“[Someday] they may demand to remove Aparajeyo Bangla by calling it an idol,” he said. www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/politics/2017/03/06/menon-bnp-jamaat-neo-jmb/