On March 7, thousands of members of Bangladesh's banned Islamist militant group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, defying police barricades, marched through the streets of Dhaka to demand that the country's secular democracy be replaced by an Islamic caliphate. Demonstrators chanting "Khilafat, Khilafat" - a direct call for Islamic rule -- gathered for the "March for Khilafat" procession outside the Baitul Mukarram Mosque after Friday prayers. The mob at the march turned violent — complete with stone-throwers who clashed with police. The police, in turn, fired back with tear gas and stun grenades.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been banned in Bangladesh since 2009 for posing a threat to national security, organized this rally in defiance of a government ban on public gatherings.
Notes veteran Bangladeshi journalist and commentator Syed Badrul Ahsan:
"Politics steadily worsens in Bangladesh. The economy is in free fall, law and order is in a cul-de-sac. The rule of law is under organised assault, with detained politicians, cultural activists and journalists unable to come by bail in court....
The [Muhammad] Yunus regime, which has no constitutional basis, has nevertheless embarked on what it touts as a reform agenda.....
Yunus' interim government has demonstrated, unabashedly, its intent to erase Bangladesh's history.
The refrain of the August 5 change, for those who hold power at present, continues to be one of a student-led revolution. It was anything but. Muhammad Yunus, on a visit to the US in September, publicly made it known in the presence of his friend Bill Clinton that the agitation against the Sheikh Hasina government had been meticulously planned.
Bangladesh's crisis is existential. All the values instrumental to its emergence 50-plus years ago are systematically being jettisoned by a regime that lacks constitutional legitimacy.
And there is another reality that cannot be ignored. In terms of the constitution, Sheikh Hasina remains prime minister. When the military had her leave the country in August, she was not given the opportunity to meet the president and submit her resignation. Her followers have thus continued to refer to her as the legitimate leader."
Some of the major groups, which were previously banned but, under Bangladesh's new leadership of Muhammad Yunus, now encouraged, include: Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tawhidi Janata, Hefazat-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Ansarullah Bangla Team.
According to the Counter Extremism Project:
"Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Islamist movement seeking to unite Muslims under one Islamic caliphate. Hizb ut-Tahrir members have been linked to violent acts in multiple countries. The group itself has been banned in at least 13 countries, including many Muslim-majority countries.
"Founded by Palestinian Taqiuddin al-Nabhani al-Filastyni in 1953, HT considers itself a non-violent political party. HT states that its goal is to peacefully convert Muslim nations to Islamist political systems. HT praises the concept of jihad but insists that it does not use 'material power to defend itself or as a weapon....' The group publicly disavows efforts to achieve its goals of a caliphate through violent means.
"However, individuals affiliated with the group have been linked to violent acts in multiple countries. Some have been involved in coup attempts in the Middle East, the murder of a pro-secularist blogger in Bangladesh, and spreading anti-Western and Muslim-separatist propaganda in the West. HT maintains that its members are political dissidents."
Hizb ut-Tahrir chapters operate in more than 40 countries, and, despite being banned in Bangladesh, are continuing to grow and mobilize elsewhere.
Since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled Bangladesh after anti-government protests August 5, 2024, radical Islamist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir have been operating freely in the country under the government of Bangladesh's new "Chief Adviser," Muhammad Yunus.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is joined by other Islamic factions under the protection of Yunus's interim government. One of them, Tawhidi Janata, is also unleashing terror across Bangladesh.
On January 28, Tawhidi Janata laid siege to the Tilakpur High School. The extremists, made up of madrassa students, vandalized the school to protest a friendly football match between two women's teams. The match had been scheduled to take place on January 29, 2025. Prior to carrying out the attack, Tawhidi Janata followers gathered outside the Tilakpur railway station and delivered incendiary speeches.
Islamist mobs have torched Hindu homes, vandalized Hindu temples, and massacred non-Muslims. The new regime has regrettably tried to downplay attacks on the Hindu minority as "fake", "exaggerated" or "politically motivated".
Yunus's regime has also released Islamist hardliners and convicted terrorists from prison. On August 31, 2024, Yunus released from prison, and met in person, Mamunul Haque, the leader of Hefazat-e-Islam, another group that aims to establish an Islamic sharia state in Bangladesh.
During the rule of Sheikh Hasina, Haque had already been arrested under various allegations, including instigating violence.
According to one report:
"Hefazat-e-Islam, the largest Islamic organisation in Bangladesh was founded in 2010 in Chittagong by Shah Ahmad Shafi to protect Islam against purported anti-Islamic laws and end secularism. It soon became the centre of religious politics and radicalisation in Bangladesh. It is reportedly financed by doctrinaire Islamists in Saudi Arabia. The 2009 Women Development Policy draft, which suggested granting women equal inheritance rights, served as the impetus for the group's formation which consists of Sunni zealots and their large network of madrasa supporters. The leaders of Hefazat-e-Islam have actively called for political and legal reforms despite the organization not being a political party. It demanded a revolution and the establishment of an Islamic state governed by Sharia Law in Bangladesh, openly opposing the country's secular legal system.
"Hefazat-e-Islam laid siege in Dhaka and proposed a 13-point plan in 2013, which included capital punishment for comments against Allah, Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, gender segregation, the release of Islamic scholars who were imprisoned and compulsory Islamic education from primary to higher secondary levels, among others. The government was compelled to surrender because of the group's immense popularity."
The group is currently operating in Bangladesh even more freely under Yunus's rule. Muhyiddin Rabbani, Hefazat-e-Islam's vice president in Bangladesh, argued that the country should adopt Islamic law as opposed to its current secular legal and constitutional structure. Rabbani made it explicit that his group intended to create an Islamic state in Bangladesh.
Rabbani clarified that under Islamic rule, there would be no place for music or art in the country:
"If Islamic law is implemented, everyone will have rights in the form of justice. We shall base our decisions about music on what is permissible in Islam. We don't like art or music. We will oppose it. I'll strongly speak against it."
Yunus's government also lifted the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamist party. It had participated in Pakistan's genocide against Hindus and Bengalis in 1971 and is responsible for many of the countless acts of violence against Bangladesh's religious minorities.
The previous government under Hasina in August 2024 briefly banned Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Chhatra Shibir, under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Jamaat-e-Islami was previously barred from participating in 2013 national elections, based on the claim that the group's constitution violated Bangladesh's constitution by opposing secularism.
Jamaat-e-Islami was founded in 1941 in British-ruled India by Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi, a figure associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization's ideology promotes Islamic conquest, aiming to bring the world under Islamic rule. In Pakistan, it remains a major political force with connections to various militant groups around the world, such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as the global Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Yunus's government also freed Jashimuddin Rahmani, chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror outfit. Rahmani, imprisoned for murdering blogger Rajib Haider, was released on parole. ABT has been trying, with the help of sleeper cells, to establish a jihadist network in Bangladesh.
ABT, banned in Bangladesh in 2015 by the Hasina government, later rebranded itself as Ansar al-Islam, and that was banned in 2017. India Today reported that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba had partnered with the ABT to carry out terrorist attacks in India's northeastern states.
Since Hasina's ouster in August 2024, the government under Yunus has freed convicted Islamic terrorists, downplayed mass violence against minorities (mainly Hindus), and let jihadist mobs take over the streets.
More than 2,200 cases of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh were reported for 2024 alone.
These radical Islamic organizations share the same main goal: a global Islamic Caliphate. If this Islamic takeover succeeds in Bangladesh, the country will become another Islamic terror state — like Afghanistan under the Taliban and Syria under its new terrorist leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa.
Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
