It’s Awami League versus Awami League in Bangladesh’s forthcoming parliament polls scheduled on Jan 7. The leading Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party or BNP and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami has pulled out of the polls when their demand for an ‘independent caretaker’ supervised election was turned down. This Opposition coalition has announced plans for continuous agitation to bring down the Awami League government and is incrementally stepping up violence by targeting public transport, railways and government offices .

Bangladesh intelligence officials say they have credible reports that four secretly raised terror groups will be deployed by Jamaat-e-Islami to attack mid-ranking police and civil officials and Awami League organisers and popular secular personalities to disrupt the command chain in both the ruling party and the civil bureaucracy .

“The BNP will lead the agitation and bear the brunt of police crackdowns but it is the Jamaat and its covert groups who will try wreck maximum damage,” a senior domestic intelligence official told this writer on condition of anonymity.

He said the plan is to force PM Sheikh Hasina to hand over to the army , already in a deployable mode just ahead of the elections, the entire responsibility for law and order and........

© Eurasia Review