What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
A six-hour-long Dawah Conference was held at the Engineers’ Institute in Chattogram of Bangladesh on 26th July with the stated aim of increasing coordination and spreading Islamic awareness across the Indian subcontinent.
Among its most prominent participants was Maulana Khalilur Rahman Sajjad Nomani, spokesperson and senior member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), who attended as chief guest. He was booked on charges of sedition and promoting animosity against religious communities in 2018.
The platform also included figures associated with militant Islamist organisations and hardline politics.
Jashimuddin Rahmani, leader of Ansarullah Bangla Team, an Al-Qaeda-inspired organisation affiliated with AQIS, was one of the speakers. Rahmani has previously made explicit statements advocating the separation of Bengal from India and threatening India’s territorial integrity.
Harun Izhar, the Joint General Secretary of Hefazat-e-Islam, who was arrested by Bangladeshi authorities for suspected ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2009, gave a speech and also participated in an onstage group discussion . Investigators have also accused him of having links with the designated terrorist group HuJI.
Muhibullah Babunagari, Amir of Hefazat-e-Islam, participated alongside politicians and academics, including Chattagram City Corporation Mayor Dr. Shahadat Hossain, State Minister Barrister Mir Mohammad Helal Uddion and Chattagram University Vice-Chancellor Dr. Mohammad Al Forkan.
The conference went far beyond theological discussion.
Speakers discussed expanding a Deobandi interpretation of Islam in India and Bangladesh, particularly through India’s border states, and increasing coordination between Muslims across the two countries.
Harun Izhar described Bangladeshi Hindus exercising religious freedoms as “severe provocations,” labelled activists and journalists documenting attacks on minorities as terrorists, warned they could be “silenced forever,” and spoke of fighting India and Indians with the capabilities of his organisations.
Other speakers discussed stricter blasphemy laws, restrictions on women’s rights and opposition to statues, sculpture and other forms of representational art.
The full six-hour video exists. These claims can be examined directly in their original context.
Nomani attending the conference makes the following questions unavoidable:
a) Was Sajjad Nomani questioned about his participation?
b) Was the complete recording examined by Indian intelligence and law-enforcement agencies?
c) Were the statements concerning India, Indian Hindus and Bangladeshi Hindus formally investigated?
The Government of India should investigate the conference, its participants, its statements and any networks or commitments arising from it.
If laws were broken, prosecute. If they were not, explain why. But silence is not an acceptable answer.
