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Satkhira union where only Jamaat rules

Rab says the party operates like militant organisation

SHARIFUL ISLAM from Satkhira
Even though it is just eight kilometres northwest of Satkhira town, the Jamaat-e-Islarni stronghold of Agardari union remains virtually cut off from the town.
Plagued by violence, even law enforcers find it difficult to go there.
It was not until last Sunday when law enforcers were able to conduct a raid worth mentioning and that too was a joint effort by Police, Rapid Action Battalion and Border Guard Bangladesh personnel.
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Journalists stay away from Agardari, considering it too dangerous. To get access, this Daily Star reporter on Wednesday afternoon had to pretend to be a friend of a local journalist who was on good terms with an Agardari Jamaat leader.
The 8km ride on a rented motorbike to the union revealed what kind of difficulties the law enforcers had been facing. It was a trail of destruction from Kadomtola on the outskirts of the district town to the union. Jamaat and pro-Jamaat Islami Chhatra Shibir men had dug up the road in at least eight places and a large number of the roadside trees had been reduced to stumps. The air still had the smell of burnt tyres and logs.
The road was almost free of traffic. Just a few rickshaw vans, bicycles and motorcycles were on it. Yet one could not ignore the eerie feeling that people on the road were staring and trying to figure out who the two people were on the motorbike.
Around 4:30pm, the motorbike pulled over at the gate of Agardari Kamil Madrasa, even though the journalists were not supposed to meet the Jamaat leader there.
A teenaged boy in a long panjabi and lungi appeared and asked the local journalists who they were.
"1 am a journalist ... I came here with my friend to meet a teacher of the madrasa," said the local journalist. But the boy interrupted him as soon as he had said, "1 am a journalist".
"Are you from Prothom Alo |the leading Bangla daily]?" he said.
The local journalist then gave a copy of his paper which die boy and a few other people there began to scrutinise.
Sensing things could get out of hand, the two journalists left on the motorbike.
The madrasa had been used as the hideout of Jamaat leaders on the run as the law enforcers had difficulties reaching it since the war criminal Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee was sentenced to death way back in February.
Lt Col Enamul Arif Sumon, commanding
officer of Rab-6 in Khulna, shed some light on the difficulties the law enforcers faced in Agardari.
He said whenever law enforcers tried to launch a drive, Jamaat-Shibir men signalled their people, who announced through mikes at mosques that Agardari was under attack.
They come rushing, exploding homemade bombs and crackers and put up resistance. "Militant organisations use such tactics," he said. He claimed that many of the Jamaat and Shibir men were involved in smuggling, like members of militant organisations often do.
The Rab official said Jamaat-Shibir men dig up roads and place large logs to prevent the law enforcers from reaching there. By the time the law enforcers clear the road, they get surrounded by Jamaat-Shibir men, even from behind.
Jamaat-Shibir men place women and children on the front rows to use them as human shields as they hurl bombs and brick chunks from behind, Enamul said.
Lt Col Enamul said when he was conducting a drive in Agardari recently, people surrounded him and began chanting, "Amra shobai Ta 1 eban i" (we a re a 11 Tai iba n).
The Daily Star reporter was able to meet the Jamaat leader of Agradari but could not ask any questions in order to keep his cover.
When the local journalist asked who had attacked the Hindus of the locality, the Jamaat leader, just like any Jamaat leader, claimed that he did not know and that Jamaat men were not involved. He claimed to have heard about the incident much later.
Yesterday, the opposition-called blockade went off rather peacefully in Satkhira, with Raispur being the exception.
There, police tried to stop the Jamaat-Shibir men from digging up a road but the opposition activists began hurling homemade bombs at the law enforcers. Police retaliated with gunfire that left one person injured.
Between Sunday and yesterday, police had arrested 54 people in connection with the violence.