Believe it or not! Bangladesh is gradually going into the tight grips of Islamist radicals and just recently, Bangladesh government showed its dirtiest face by stopping internationally acclaimed journalist and peace activist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury from traveling to United States to receive prestigious Moral Courage Award, of which, he is the third recipient in past 100 years. Such behavior of Dhaka puts the Bangladeshi journalist into land arrest. Various intelligence agencies are closely monitoring his movements while telephones are being bugged. Even the government was extremely reluctant in ensuring security to Choudhury when he received telephonic threats from a leader of JMB a few months back.
AJC decided to give this award to Choudhury, in recognition to his tireless efforts in confronting Islamist radicals and religious hatred as well for advocating peace through inter-faith dialogue. It was already confirmed that a number of world figures like US President George W. Bush, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, German Chancellor Angela Markel, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, King Abdullah II of Jordan, South African President Thabo Mbeki, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, High Representative of EU Javier Solana, Middle East Special Envoy James Wolfensohn, President of International Red Cross Jakob Kellenberger, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Archbishop of Canterbury Rt. Reverend George Leonard Carey, Spiritual Leader of Art of Living Foundation Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shanker, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many others would attend the prize giving ceremony. On receiving letter from American Jewish Committee (AJC) about the award, Choudhury notified his government and requested them to return his passport, which is now held with a court in connection to a false sedition charge brought by Bangladesh government, for criticizing Islamist radicals, confronting culture of hatred and advocating peace in the world as well establishment of relations between Muslim countries and Israel. Bangladesh government recently congratulated the Hamas government is Palestine and assured all possible cooperation, although the United States and European Union decided to seize all sorts of cooperation to Hamas led government. This decision clearly proves that the Western world categorically took stand against Hamas, which is a mega terrorist organization. But, by expressing solidarity to Hamas, Bangladesh in other words ignores United States and European Union, just because the ruling government in Dhaka is seriously influenced by Islamist radicals. There are valid questions in the minds of the world community as to whether the Western world would take this matter into their consideration and put pressure on Bangladesh government for their open expression of solidarity with the mega terrorist groups. Leading economists say, one of the key sources of foreign currency income for Bangladesh is export of readymade garments. US and European Union are the major buyers. In this case, if Dhakas pro-Hamas attitude will annoy them and certain economic embargoes are imposed on Bangladesh government, it will put the country into serious jeopardy. It may also be mentioned that, Bangladesh is one of the strongest supporters of Iran, which is in recent days, facing serious criticism by the West for development nuclear weapons. Bangladesh although proclaims to be a moderate Muslim nation, but realities in the country quite evidently prove that the country is gradually transforming into another Afghanistan.
Bangladesh situation is also worrying its neighbors. Recently, Indias shaodowy intelligence service, in its circulated dossier forecasted that Bangladesh was about to become the next Afghanistan. This was one of the Indian tactiks to defame Bangladesh in the eyes of Americans when President George Bushs delegation, including infleuntial members of US press were in New Delhi, who were served with a number of extremely negative information on Indias South Asian neighbor.
In the dossier, RAW said, Bangladeshi government seems only to move firmly against jihadist terrorist movements when international pressure reaches a peak. The government's decision to ban three Islamist organizations, the JBM, JMJB and AHAB, came in February last year, on the day that foreign aid donors were meeting in Washington to review aid to Bangladesh in the light of the country's grim human rights record and the jihadist threat.
It said, Jamiatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) has recruited a special organization of suicide bombers called the Shahid Nasirullah Arafat Brigade, whose members get monthly salaries while in training and whose family are promised substantial sums after the act of martyrdom. Abdur Rahman, the leader of JMB, studied at Madina Islamic University in Saudi Arabia, and worked at the Saudi Embassy in Bangladesh from 1985 to 1989.
The RAW dossier claims the JMB gets funding from the Kuwait-based RIHS (Revival of Islamic Heritage Society), the Rabata al Alam al-Islami, and the Al-Haramain Foundation. There is no direct evidence that these groups were aware that they were funding violence or terrorism. RAW officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told American journalists that "Arabian charities have in the past proved gullible to funding requests from groups outside the Arab world who claim to be seeking funds for religious education, while keeping quiet about their readiness to resort to political violence."
The dossier goes on to track the backgrounds and training of Bangladeshi Jihadist activists in Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Palestinian-run training camps in Lebanon, in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and in Chechnya. The dossier specifies direct links with al-Qaida and with the Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist organizations.
"When al-Qaida's remaining militants fled Afghanistan after the U.S.-backed military operations overthrew the Taliban, several of the militants ended up in Bangladesh, where they reformed and regrouped and have now built significant operational bases and an influential political movement that preaches an openly Taliban-style program to turn Bangladesh into an Islamist state," a senior RAW official told in a rare briefing of a foreign journalist.
RAW dossier further said, "we have accumulated a list of 573 registered Islamic NGOs in Bangladesh that are linked to Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and we have tracked funding of over $80 million a year, although this is just the tip of the iceberg. This kind of money has a major political impact in Bangladesh. Some of this money is clearly being diverted into the purchase of arms and ammunition."
There is yet more news. Indian publication company Sage, published a book titled Bangladesh The Next Afghanistan. This book is written by Hiranmay Karlekar, who worked for Indian newspaper Statesman as its correspondent during the war of independence in 1971. There is already tremendous publicity and propaganda by different newspapers in India to promote this book.

Keeping these facts into consideration, Bangladesh was excluded for the South Asia tour of US President George W. Bush. There are even apprehensions that, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to be in Dhaka in coming June might also call of the trip as Dhakas pro-radical initiatives, has already put them in the doubtful eyes to many.