Mohammad Yunus, the interim leader of Bangladesh, stated on Thursday that wars and man-made conflicts are ruining thousands of lives and livelihoods, making peace elusive throughout Asia and beyond. While on an official tour in Tokyo, the Nobel laureate stated that Asia must provide the globe with a “new moral compass” that promotes “peace over force, collaboration over competitiveness, sustainability over short-term gain”
A verdict against a prominent Islamist leader who had been on death row since being condemned under the Sheikh Hasina dictatorship before to her overthrow last year was reversed by Bangladesh’s top court on Tuesday, days before Yunus gave his peace talk. A leader of Jamaat-e-Islami named ATM Azharul Islam was charged of raping 13 women, killing 1,256 people, and kidnapping 17. The hypocrisy of the leader is becoming increasingly nauseating.
This love affair between the Yunus interim government and Jammat is not new. Since, the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh. The country has slipped down to a ditch of never ending Islamic radicalism and constant upheaval, marked with strikes and mob violence.
This wave of unrest has been fueled by this once banned Islamic organization under the patronage of Caretaker Government. This ‘Razakar’ link is becoming more and more stark as this caretaker government clings to power for more and more time. ‘Razakar’ is the word associated with the people which aided the Pakistani Army in their quest of committing genocide during ‘Liberation War’ in 1971.
Who Is Azharul Islam?
Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure as prime minister came to an end in August 2024 when she was forced to leave due to a student-led uprising. During her term, she cracked down on Jamaat-e-Islami’s leaders and outlawed the organization. During her tenure, Islam was one of six high-ranking political figures found guilty.
Islam, who was born in 1952 in the village of Lohanipara in Badarganj, Rangpur district, was the leader of the Al-Badr militia during the Liberation War in Bangladesh. He helped the Pakistan Army put an end to the uprising. He was found guilty in 2014 of planning the 1971 Jharuarbeel massacre, in which 13 women were raped and 1,256 civilians were brutally murdered in Bangladesh’s Rangpur district.
In 2012, he was taken into detention. Islam filed a review petition in 2020 after the court confirmed his sentence in 2019, despite his initial appeal against it in 2015. Islam challenged his conviction once more on February 27, following Hasina’s (77) departure from Bangladesh last year and the Yunus regime’s ban on her Awami League party. He was cleared on Tuesday by the entire bench, which was presided over by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed.
Yunus, Hypocrisy Is Thy Name
Speaking at the opening of the ‘Nikkei Forum: 30th Future of Asia’ in Tokyo on Thursday, Yunus, who is currently in Japan, urged the region to become a ray of prosperity for everybody. He claimed that because of man-made conflicts, peace is becoming “elusive” and the globe is growing more volatile.
“We are living in a period of extreme uncertainty. According to the Bangladeshi magazine Prothom Alo, he stated, “We are witnessing a world where peace is fragile, tensions are growing, and cooperation is not always guaranteed.”
According to Yunus, thousands of people’s lives and means of subsistence are being destroyed by violence in Gaza, Ukraine, and other South and Southeast Asian nations. He even had the gall to preach about peace there. Here s what Yunus said –
“Very recently, our two neighbours have fought a short but expensive war. Regrettably, we are spending billions in fighting wars, leaving millions of our people starving or struggling for basic needs.”
As stated earlier, Yunus is a hypocrite who suffers from a dangerous disease called ‘Delusional Amnesia”. Symptoms of this ailment includes a catastrophic failure to ‘read the room’, absolute disregard of reality and also partial blindness to anything that his happening at one’s own country,
Maybe that is why Yunus failed to talk about the growing and constant violence against minorities, primarily Hindus in Bangladesh. History will remember this interim government as a complete failure and as the one which ruined Bangladesh. On one hand, this government is selling the country to the highest bidder and on the other hand, it is freeing Africa styled genocidal warlords. It’s a Molotov cocktail just waiting to be thrown.
