Shibir: unveiled

As far as Jamat-i-Islami and Islami Chatra Shibir are concerned, terrorism is their institutional aspect. They killed people in the name of Islam in 1971, burned houses, raped our women. They still continue their killing even now. To dominate the educational institution they consistently plan on killing brilliant students and leaders of progressive student organizations. Such activities are clearly the continuation of their annihilation of intellectuals during 1971. What they actually desire is to resist the development of the country by creating mayhem in the educational sector. The list of their offences would be a long one. Although their trademark vein slitting was paused for a while, it has been started again. Jamaat-i-Islami opposed the 1971 Liberation War by assisting the Pakistani military. Jamaats student wing at that time was known as Islami Chatra Shangstha (Islamic Student Organization). As the political scenario in Bangladesh went through a major change, that same organization re-established and renamed itself as Islamic Chatra Shibir in 1977. Only within three years of their re-establishment, this much-criticized barbaric organization started killing people by slaughtering them in Chittagong. Clashes between student organizations are nothing new in Bangladeshs context. But there is a fundamental difference between Shibir and other student organizations. Shibir takes on killing as their distinct objective. When they attack someone they make sure that the person is crippled forever. This is a very effective approach in restraining the person from politics and it also creates fear among others. Such atrocity cannot be compared with any other. Only Shibir can be associated with ferocities as crushing bones using hammers-rods-bricks, poking out brains by pushing a wheel-spoke of rickshaws through ones ear, cutting hand- and leg-veins, gouging out eyes, breaking spine, cutting away wrists, killing with falchions-daggers-axes. Lets take a look at the long history of Shibirs atrocity: 1) March 1981: Within only three years of their establishments, the Shibir cadres savagely stabbed and killed Tobarak Hossain, the newly elected AGS of Chatra League in Chittagong City College, using falchions. One of the Shibir activists urinated on Tobaraks face when he was crying for water on the point of death. 2) March 11, 1982: The Shibir cadres along with three-buses full of outsider terrorists attacked general students in Rajshahi University. The University authority banned Shibir afterwards. 3) 1984: Shibir activists slaughtered Shahadat Hossain, a brilliant student and a Chatra Union leader, inside room 15 of Shuhrawardi Hall, Chittagong College. 4) 1986: Shibir cut away the right hand wrist of Abdul Hamid, leader of National Student Society. They celebrated their wrongdoing with a speared cutaway wrist. 5) May 31, 1988: Leader of Chatra Moitri, Dr. Jamil Akter, was killed by Shibir with multiple stabbing and vein-cutting in front of Rajshahi Medical Colleges main hostel. This was happened in front of the college principal and council members, and hundreds of students.

6) 1988: Shibir cadres killed the freedom fighter and National Communist Party leader of Chapainababganj, Jalal, in front of his own home. 7) July 1st week, 1988: Outsider Shibir cadres attacked and injured the general secretary of Amir Ali Hall, Prince, along with other 20-25 people. 8) July 17, 1988: Outsider Shibir cadres attacked the SM Hall around 4 oclock in the morning. They cut veins of Ayub Ali Khan, Ahsanul Kabir Badal and Nawshad, who are co-general secretary of Rajshahi University Chatra League branch and member of the senate, general secretary and member of the senate, and vice president of the hall committee, respectively. 9) 1988: Shibir cadres brutally killed Munir, Jewel and Tapan in Sylhet. 10) August, 1988: Shibir bombarded the house of Economics Professor Md. Yunus in Rajshahi University. Professor Yunus survived, but his housekeeper was injured. 11) Month of Ramadan, 1989: Shibir invited the chairman of Rajshahi University Chatra Union branch, Gazi Golam Mustafa, for an iftar in the nearby Chokpara area and cut his hand veins. 12) November, 1989: Shibir bombed the Chatra League activists in the afternoon in front of Nazrul Islam auditorium; Babu, Rafiq, and ten other people were injured. 13) December 22, 1990: Shibir cadres slaughtered the co-chairman of Chittagong University Chatra Moitri, Faruquzzaman Faruq. 14) March 17, 1992: A several thousand of outsider armed Shibir cadres along with the infamous Sirajus Saleheen division made a sudden attack in Rajshahi University campus around 11 AM in the month of holy Ramadan that killed Chatra League leader Yeasir Arafat and injured JaSaD Chatra Leagues Ivy, Nirmol, Lemon, Rusho, Jafu, Faruq, and Communist Chatra Fronts Rajesh, along with more than hundred and a fifty other students. Most of them had their hand and legveins cut and Rajesh lost his wrist. Shibir cadres burned down SM Hall, Anwar Hall and Latif Hall during the attack. Glasses in the hall windows were melted down due to the use of excessive gunpowder. Some of the damaged rooms in Latif Hall are still left unused. The attack was so fierce and planned that it went on until 3 oclock at night until BDR was unleashed in the university campus. 15) May, 1992: Islamic Chatra Shangstha Rajshahi branch leader Munira Begum got killed when a bomb she was carrying exploded accidentally and a fellow-passenger and the rickshaw puller got injured. 16) June 19, 1992: Shibir attacked the procession by JaSaD which was formed supporting the Hartal activity called by the Mother of Martyrs Jahanara Imam as part of her movement to try the war criminal Golam Azam. JaSaD leader Mukim got severely injured near Shaheb Bazar zero point and he died on June 24.

17) August, 1992: Shibir cadre Ajibor and three other people got killed while they were making bombs inside the house of Shibir cadre Mojammel in New Boothpara. The entire house was smashed to ground as the bomb exploded and the roof was found hanging on a tree about several hundred yards away. Police recovered severed legs from a pond nearby. Shibir did not confirm the death of anyone else other than Ajibor. The police filed a case of carrying explosives and killing accusing Shibir cadre Mojammel. Mojammel was a fugitive for five years and later he returned to the area and became associated again with Jamaat. 18) February 6, 1993: Sharbadolio Chatra Oikko (a coalition formed by Chatra Dal and Chatra Sangram Porishod) members and other general students were attacked by Shibir in Rajshahi University which killed Chatra Dal leader Bishwajit, a commoner Natun and Chatra Unions Tapan, along with five other students. 19) 1999: Mohammad Musa, son of Professor Dr. Enamul Haque of Chittagong University and a Chatra Dal leader, was brutally killed by Shibir. 20) September 19, 1999: A talented cricket player and Chatra Moitri leader Jubayed Chowdhury Rimu was killed by outsider Shibir cadres in Rajshahi University as they cut his veins and stabbed multiple times. 21) 1994: Shibir activists cut away the wrist of Chatra Moitri leader Prodyut Rudra as he was walking in front of the 3rd Science building to sit for an examination. 22) February 13, 1995: In Chowdyapai, Bangladesh chatra Moitri leader Debashish Bhotyacharja was killed as he was stabbed by Shibir activists in front of all the passengers of a bus going to Dhaka from Rajshahi. His hand- and leg-veind were cut before he was killed. 23) July 1995: Chatra Dal central committee member and student leader Farhad got his wrist cutaway by the armed Shibir activists. Almost 25 Chatra Dal leaders and activists got their veins cut in the same attack. 24) 1996: JaSaS Rajshahi University branchs general secretary Aman Ullah Aman was brutally stabbed and killed under broad daylight by Shibir activists in front of the central library. Chatra Dal leader Duplay got his veins cut in the same attack. Two other classmates and a teacher got injured as they were coming to rescue them. 25) 1997: Vice President of student union Mohammad Jamir and general secretary of Chatra Dal Fariduddin Ahmed were shot first, and then were killed as their veins were cut by Shibir in Chittagong Poly-technique Institute. 26) 1997: Shibir activists bombarded and set fire to the house of almost twenty professors, including Professors Abdul Khaleque and Habibur Rahman.

27) 1997: Chatra League members and leaders were injured as they were attack by outsider Shibir cadres in the dark of night in Rajshahi University. They also bombarded the Police camp in Rajshahi University gymnasium. 28) 1998: While Professor Mohammad Yunus was returning from teachers association meeting near Rajshahi University Shaheed Minar, he was attacked by the armed Shibir activists. As the students and university staffs rescued him, he got away with his life but was severely injured. 29) 1999: The Shibir activists were resisted by a university staff as they were trying to demolish the foundation-stone of the memorial of 71 in a mass grave in Rajshahi University. He was stabbed by the Shibir cadres as a result and they broke the foundation-stone. 30) August 22, 1998: Shibir cadres killed the Chatra Union activist Sanjoy Tolapotro in Chittagong University. 31) 2000: Shibir activists burst-fired a microbus containing eight Chatra League members in Chittagongs Boddorhat; all of them were killed in this attack. 32) 2001: As the female students of Rajshahi University were protesting the outsiders infiltration in the female dormitories, armed Shibir activists made a commando-style attack on them and harassed the students. 33) October last week, 2001: The Chatra Shibir activists tried to slaughter Rajshahi University Professor Sanat Kumar Saha by tying his hands and legs. However, he got away alive as the university staffs luckily noticed the incident and interfered. 34) 2002: Shushanta Sinha, a leader of the Nationalist Chatra Front of Rajshahi University, got his bones broken as he was severely beaten by the Shibir activists. 35) July 25, 2004: Shushanta Sinha was attacked again by Shibir cadre Robi, Rokon and 15-20 other activists. They wounded him with bricks and tried to break his spine. 36) 2004: The female students of Rajshahi University were protesting the outsiders infiltration in the female dormitories and the Shibir activists attacked them. 37) 2004: Professor Md. Yunus was brutally stabbed and killed as he was going to the mosque to say the Fazr prayers. Although two JMP members were condemned to death for committing this murder, locals believe this was an act of Shibir. One should note that Shibir tried to kill him twice before, in 1988 and in 1998. 38) September 26, 2004: Shamim Ahmed, chairman of Chatra Moitri Basrisal Agorpur union branch, was killed by Shibir cadres.

39) October 30, 2004: About 50 female students were injured by the Shibir cadres as they attacked a procession in front of Jamaat-i-Islamis current Ameer of Rajshahi metropolitan Ataur Rahman and proctor Nurul Afsar. 40) December 10, 2005: Shibir tried to perform a vein-cutting on Rajshahi University Chatra Unions chairman S. M. Chandan in front of Jubery Hall. 41) February 2, 2006: Rajshahi Universitys Geography and Mineralogy faculty Abu Taher was killed by a sudden attack by Jamaat-favored faculty Mohiuddin, Chatra Shibir chairman Mahbub Alam Saleheen, along with two other cadres. 42) August 21, 2006: Shibir declared Professor Hasan Azizul Haque unwanted in Rajshahi University campus as he gave speech in a seminar titled Secularism and Education. They threated to cut his throat and dump him in the Bay-of-Bengal in an open gathering. 43) February 8, 2010: Rajshahi University Chatra League member Faruque Hossain was killed and was dropped in a manhole by the Shibir cadres.