Over 8,000 arrested in Bangladesh crackdown after machete attacks on Christians, atheists

Chiqui Guyjoco Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Bangladesh police arrested over 8,000 extremists in a nationwide crackdown that began Friday, June 10 as it moves to end the surging violence that has wracked the Muslim nation targeting religious minorities, secular intellectuals, and activists.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh addresses attendees during the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York, September 30, 2015. | REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR - RTS2GR3

"During the anti-crime clampdown we have arrested 8,569 people and of them 119 are suspected militants," AKM Quamrul Ahsan, spokesman for Dhaka Police Headquarters, told reporters Monday, June 13 , according to The Hitavada.

The week-long crackdown on a nationwide scale involved the Border Guard Bangladesh and the Rapid Action Battalion. Authorities have also arrested Shahjahan Robin, whose murder of a top anti-terror officer's wife has prompted the large-scale clampdown.

As the police operation started, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed that "each and every killer will be brought to book."

"It may take time, but God willing, we will be able to bring them under control," she said during a meeting with the Awami League party, as reported by Sky News.

However, the government's opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), feel threatened with the arrests as the prime minister has earlier accused the BNP and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami to be behind the gruesome murders in a bid to destabilize the country.

According to the Daily Observer, Hasina said during a party meeting, "Everybody knows who were behind such killings. The BNP-Jamaat nexus has been engaged in such secret and heinous murders to destabilize the country."

"In the name of an antimilitant drive, the government is arresting opposition activists, including B.N.P. and other antigovernment people," decried BNP's senior joint secretary general, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, as quoted by The New York Times.

"I welcome this special drive. It should have been taken much earlier," said general secretary of the South Asian People's Union, Shahriar Kabir, a widely-considered militant target.

More than 30 individuals have been killed in a series of machete attacks that targeted religious minorities, secular intellectuals, and activists since February 2013. Islamic militants as well as home-grown militant groups have staked claims on the killings.