POWER SHOULD BE TRANSFERRED IN A PEACEFUL MANNER

Hawkers and rickshaw pullers crowd the congested lane that turns into a comparatively open stretch where the obscurely located office of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami functions quietly.

- BY NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

Railway lines have almost reached Dhaka's Boro Moghbazar, promising to connect the Jamaat’s central office to the outside world, adding more footfall to the headquarters that was shut down in September 2011 after the group was banned by the Sheikh Hasina government. The office has been reopened after Hasina’s ouster. “We should thank you, you have come all the way from India,” says Dr Shafiqur Rahman, Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

Rahman is aware of the apprehensions in India regarding the massacre of minorities and vigilantism on the streets, and about the expansion of the radical space that can snap the secular thread that binds his country with India. Jamaat's domestic space might have opened up, but its next steps will determine how ready Bangladeshis are to embrace it. On issues plaguing bilateral ties, Rahman says it is the “mutual responsibility of both countries to address them”. Excerpts from an interview:

Q Is the law and order situation a concern in Bangladesh?