PM's special assistant Rashed Khan sharply questions Jamaat's claimed 'path to paradise'

Although Jamaat-e-Islami claims to show people the path to paradise, Prime Minister's Special Assistant Rashed Khan has expressed sharp doubts about that claimed path and the party's political positions. In a social media message, he raised a series of questions about Jamaat's policy contradictions.

In a post on his Facebook account on Wednesday, Rashed Khan drew on recent remarks by Jamaat Ameer Dr Shafiqur Rahman. He wrote that the Jamaat chief had claimed their party shows people the way to paradise.

In response, Rashed Khan cited a hadith, reminding readers that in the end times the Dajjal, too, would show people paradise to win their allegiance. On that basis he expressed amazement: which paradise's path does Jamaat actually want to show people?

Putting the party's contradictory positions in the dock, he asked: meeting foreign representatives before an election and signalling that Sharia law would not be imposed even in power, or the role of Gazi Nazrul Islam — which is their real path?

He also raised Jamaat's legal fight on behalf of the killers of Shaheed Abrar Fahad, and levelled an allegation of religious insult over placing Ramadan fasting and Puja in the same category. Through these points he argued that Jamaat's declared positions and its actions are hard to reconcile.

On electoral politics, Rashed Khan wrote that after mocking the political identity of Sanatan (Hindu) believers in the past, the party now campaigns with 'Hindu means Daripalla' — accusing Jamaat of shifting positions according to electoral advantage.

He also raised the nomination of Krishna Nandi as an election candidate. Nominating a Hindu candidate on one hand and, on the other, delivering messages about paradise by trading on religious sentiment — he questioned that contradiction as well.

Rashed Khan also challenged the party's role regarding the July mass uprising. His allegation: declaring a general amnesty barely a month after the historic uprising, without ensuring trial of the Awami League, was in effect a clear betrayal of the July revolution.

At the end of the post he commented that the outline of paradise Jamaat presents through falsehood and deception is, in essence, nothing but the Dajjal's paradise. The language used by the Prime Minister's special assistant has stirred discussion in political circles.

There was no immediate reaction from Jamaat to the post. Debate over religion-based politics and rhetoric about a 'path to paradise' is not new in Bangladeshi politics, however, and such exchanges intensify as elections approach.

Observers see Rashed Khan's post as a direct attack from the government side against Jamaat's religion-appeal-based politics. Whether Jamaat answers these allegations, and where the controversy heads next, remains to be seen.