Secret infiltrators within the Chhatra League were the ones attacking leftist activists, suspects Selim

Mujahidul Islam Selim, former president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, has expressed suspicion over whether those who strategically infiltrated the Chhatra League during the Awami League government later posed as the Chhatra League’s “helmet force” and “goon squad” and carried out attacks on leftist activists.

He raised this question today, Saturday, November 29, while delivering his speech at a national convention organized by the Left Democratic Alliance and Bangladesh JASAD at the Engineers Institution auditorium in the capital.

After August 5 of last year, discussions began that certain “secret organizations” had infiltrated the Chhatra League.

The matter became clearer when Abdul Kader—leader of the July riots and convener of the Democratic Student Union's Dhaka University unit—explicitly stated that many members of secret organizations had long been inside the Chhatra League, which had controlled educational institutions with dominance for over a decade and a half.

Abdul Kader said this in a Facebook post on July 2. He later became the convener of his organization’s Dhaka University unit.

A student of the Social Welfare Department (2018–2019 academic year), he was also coordinator of the anti-discrimination movement. He was a leader of the Democratic Student Power led by Nahid Islam and Akhtar Hossain.

Selim brought up this issue in his speech. However, he did not mention the name of any particular organization.

He said, “Those who now say they were strategic, that they infiltrated the Chhatra League by paying 2–5 lakh taka to become committee members so they could take action at the right time—those who introduced this infiltration theory—my question is: when you infiltrated the Chhatra League, then who posed as the Chhatra League’s helmet force and goon squad to attack our activists? Surely you were also among them.”

He further said, “They say, ‘If we didn’t stay in the guest room, they would not let us stay.’ So even if they didn’t attack, by that logic, they wouldn’t have let you remain in the committee either. This gives enough grounds for suspicion.”