South Asia Citizens Web

Nizamuddin Samad, a master’s degree student of Jagannath University in Dhaka who had expressed secular views online, was killed in the capital on Wednesday. The 28-year-old was reported to have been an organiser of the Ganajagran Manch, a secular campaigning group. UN and Eu reps in Bangladesh have reacted to the killing and fellow students have protested.

IN the world we live in, there is no dearth of pious men who believe that most of the world’s problems can be fixed by giving their women a little thrashing. And this business of a man’s God-given right to give a woman a little thrashing has brought together all of Pakistan’s pious men.

The first quarter has seen not just censorship but violence, sedition and defamation cases, arrests and a murder

... The fact is that there is a nexus between the militant, extremist and jihadist elements in the education sector, not just in KP but to an extent all over Pakistan. These ‘pro-ideology’ elements understand that only by controlling the minds of the youth is it possible to pre-empt change and resist reforms. If they cannot control curricula-making they use threats of violence to influence the process.

In the decades since the war, there have been efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. The most recent attempt started in 2010, when the current government established two International Crimes Tribunals that together have convicted 26 people on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. International human rights organizations have criticized the tribunals as falling far short of proper due process, but the trials appear popular within Bangladesh.