Bangladesh working to uproot Islamic militancy - Hasina
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Friday her government was working to uproot Islamic militancy to strengthen democracy in the country.
"We will not allow extremists to repeat the carnage (of people) in the name of religion any more," Hasina told a May Day rally organised by the labour wing of her Awami League party.
"Unlike the previous government, we have started uprooting religious militancy to strengthen democracy in the country."
Hasina took office on Jan. 6 following a massive win in an election that saw Islamist parties and their allies routed. She vowed to fight all anti-democratic forces to the end and warned against possible attempts to destabilise the country.
The government has been conducting a sweep for members of outlawed Islamist groups, which it suspects may have been involved in a mutiny at the Dhaka headquarters of a paramilitary unit in February.
The February 25-26 mutiny killed nearly 80 people, mostly army officers commanding the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) troops, and raised fears of more violence to come.
"We successfully averted a civil war, pursuing peaceful means to tackle the mutiny," Hasina said.
Security forces have seized explosives and detained nearly 200 suspected militants recently, including a top official of a British-based Islamic non-governmental organisation for allegedly funding Islamist militancy in Bangladesh.
Officials say Islamist militants, who have killed dozens of people in Bangladesh in bomb attacks in recent years, were trying to turn the Muslim-majority country of 140 million people into a sharia-based Islamic state.
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which wants to turn Bangladesh into a sharia-based Islamic state, was blamed for a series of deadly bombings in late 2005.
The radical Islamist movement has been subdued since six top commanders were executed in 2007. But intelligence officials have said they were regrouping and might strike again.
Police seized a huge cache of explosives, grenades and firearms after raiding suspected militant hideouts ahead of parliamentary elections in December.
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