Unease among AL allies over JSD role

While Awami League's allies see the spat over Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal's role in creating the grounds for Bangabandhu killing as a plot to split the 14-party alliance, some AL leaders maintain they were simply pointing out the “historical facts”.

"The incidents between October 31, 1972 and August 15, 1975 come up naturally if we discuss the assassination of Bangabandhu," said AL Organising Secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim.

On Sunday, AL Presidium Member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim alleged that anti-liberation forces would never have dared to attack Bangabandhu if the JSD had not created the circumstances by carrying out robberies and killings.

This touched off a series of scathing remarks from some leaders of the JSD -- which was founded on October 31, 1972 -- and the AL over each other's activities surrounding the August 15 bloodbath.

"The nation could not know the truths about the time due to a massive distortion of history ... Now everybody should know the truths," Bahauddin Nasim told The Daily Star yesterday.

"We are telling the history of that time. We have no intention to destroy the unity of the 14-party," he added.

However, the left-leaning parties in the alliance, including the JSD, don't see it that way.

"Such irresponsible allegations will adversely affect the 14-party alliance," said JSD General Secretary Sharif Nurul Ambia.

"The Awami League forged an alliance with the JSD, knowing full well its past. So, the ongoing debate is totally undesired.

"The comments are coming from Awami League policymakers. I don't know whether these are party statements. If it's the official stand of the Awami League, we'll have to think about our next strategy," he said.

The comments of Sheikh Selim, who lost a number of family members in the August 15 massacre, were followed by those from some senior AL leaders including Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal.

AL's archrival BNP too joined in.

BNP Standing Committee Member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy came down hard on JSD chief Hasanul Haq Inu on Tuesday.

He said, "I was involved in the JSD in 1974. We decided to lay siege to the then home minister Captain M Mansur Ali's residence on March 17. We were chanting slogans, but suddenly a group led by Inu and Anwar started firing at the residence."

Goyeshwar was then general secretary of pro-JSD Chhatra League's Jagannath Hall chapter.

Such attacks against the JSD are not a good sign, thinks Politburo Member Anisur Rahman Mollick of the Workers Party of Bangladesh, a key component of the 14-party combine.

"A conspiracy is being hatched to destabilise the country's politics and the ongoing mudslinging between the two allies will only help the conspirators," he said.

"The war of words between the two allied parties will harm the secular unity and benefit the communal forces," observed Presidium Member Nurur Rahman Selim of Gonotantri Party, another component of the 14-party.

AL leaders, however, won't buy their leftist friends' arguments.

"Jasad [JSD] should not react if anyone brings the truth to the fore," said AL Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury.

"Efforts to discover the truth will not harm the unity of the alliance as it was formed with different objectives," he argued.

National Awami Party General Secretary Enamul Haque said they would seek an explanation from the AL at the next meeting of the 14-party for the ruling party leaders' "anti-JSD remarks".