Unearth sources of terrorism funding

Economist Prof Dr Abul Barkat in a seminar yesterday said communalism and fundamental militancy must be stopped as they only push the country backwards.

Dr Barkat was presenting a keynote speech in a session of regional seminar of Bangladesh Economic Association, Chittagong chapter at Theatre Institute Chittagong.

Economic inequality paved the way for fundamentalism and their recruitments. Whilst, the fundamentalists' have a strong economic foundation, and as per his 2014 assessment, the financial operations of fundamentalism saw an approximate yearly net profit of Tk 2,464 crore, said Barkat in his speech.

The major portion of the profit (27 percent) came from the financial institutions, while the second highest (18.8 percent) from different private and commercial firms, he said.

Terming majority of Qawmi madrasas as breeding grounds, Barkat said one out of three students studied in madrasas and there were over 55,000 madrasas, of those, 73 percent were Qawmi madrasas. Most of the madrasa students come from poor families, he said, adding, as 75 percent madrasa students did not have any job opportunities, they were vulnerable to inclining towards fundamentalism.

Banned militant organisations like JMB and Ansarullah Bangla Team had already established a network with al-Qaeda and other organisations and trying to bring all in a same platform to establish a khilafat state as per Islami Shariah through "jihad", he said.

Barkat said this problem cannot be solved overnight.

He emphasised on key issues including sealing off the source of money and creating awareness against religious fundamentalism; arresting people involved directly or indirectly in militancy, strengthening the movement against communal politics, confiscating all the wealth of militants and urging the government to make public information about the economic source of fundamentalism and unearth the source of militant funding.