Threat to Hasina’s life, warn intelligence agencies

DHAKA - Intelligence agencies at home and abroad have warned of a threat to the life of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that could take place between September and November, a media report said.

The intelligence agencies warned that simultaneous multiple sabotage might be carried out by “the anti-liberation war forces, in collaboration with an Indian separatist organisation and different local militant outfits”, The Daily Star newspaper said.

Sources said that the warning came following information from different intelligence agencies at home and abroad that an attempt on the prime minister’s life might be carried out between this month and November.

The Hasina government has taken measures to neutralise Indian militant groups operating on Bangladeshi soil. It has detained and facilitated the hand-over of several top leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).

There have been several attempts on Hasina’s life in the past. Mahbubul Alam Hanif, a special assistant to the prime minister, said her life “is under threat at all times”.

Indian intelligence agencies had warned of a threat to Hasina’s life in November 2008 when Bangladesh was preparing for the parliamentary elections.

A minister, who attended the weekly cabinet meeting and was quoted by the newspaper, said that Hasina herself alerted her cabinet colleagues that the opposition parties might try to “destabilise the country within the next couple of months” through violent protests and subversion.

She linked these attempts on her government holding the trial of “war criminals”. Those who targeted unarmed civilians during the 1971 freedom movement are referred to as war criminals.

The top brass of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist ally of main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, has been detained.