Bangladesh’s Islamists are readying to make political gains after being crushed for years by the government that was overthrown in a mass uprising last year, rallying hardline loyalists for eagerly anticipated elections.”We are pretty confident about entering the parliament in the next election,” Muhammad Mamunul Haque, joint secretary of Hefazat-e-Islam, an influential coalition of Islamic schools, told AFP in an interview.The coalition will hold a mass rally in the capital Dhaka on Saturday in what is expected to be one of their biggest public shows of strength for years as religiously fuelled activism gains popularity.Haque, 52, said the group will push to implement sharia, or Islamic law, and believes the group’s network of tens of thousands of seminaries — claiming to have some 500,000 members — means they will do well if the vote “is free and fair”.Hefazat-e-Islam is an alliance of different parties and Muslim organisations, including Haque’s Khilafat-e-Majlish party.A hugely influential pressure group, it has been courted by political parties since it was founded 15 years ago.No date has been set for elections but caretaker leader Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who heads the interim government, has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest.- Strength after revolution – The South Asian nation of some 170 million people last held elections in January 2024, when Sheikh Hasina won a fourth term as prime minister in the absence of genuine opposition parties.Her opponents boycotted the vote after a crackdown.Hasina, who was blamed for extensive human rights abuses, took a tough stand against Islamist movements during her autocratic 15-year rule.Thousands were detained, including Haque, who was arrested in 2021 and spent three years in jail.He faced around a dozen charges after Islamists tried to protest against a visit by Hasina’s key ally Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Hindu-nationalist leader of neighbouring India.Hasina fled to New Delhi in August as crowds stormed her palace.She remains in self-imposed exile in India, infuriating Bangladeshis determined that she face trial for alleged “mass murder”.Islamist groups have gained strength with Hasina gone and have increasingly sought to impose their vision on the wider population. That has sparked worries from smaller groups, including Muslim Sufi worshippers and the Hindu minority, who together account for less than a tenth of the population.Women, in particular, have expressed concern.Islamists have demanded an end to a swath of activities, including cultural events deemed “anti-Islamic” — from music to theatre festivals, women’s football matches and kite-flying celebrations.Mobs have vandalised Sufi shrines. Supporters of Haque’s Khilafat-E-Majlis group stormed a public library last month and carted away hundreds of books before returning them.Golam Rabbani, a leader of Khilafat-E-Majlish’s youth wing, said they had targeted books that “promoted atheism”, including Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and the national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.- ‘Implement sharia’ -Hefazat-e-Islam’s rally on Saturday follows two days of marches by other key parties who are also seeking their support.Those include the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), expected to be the largest political force, and the National Citizens Party (NCP), formed by students who spearheaded the uprising against Hasina.It also includes the largest single Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami.Haque said the group opposed a government women’s commission and its recommendations to end discriminatory provisions, including equal inheritance rights for men and women.”The commission is disrespectful to Islamic family traditions,” Haque said.”It seems they want to destroy the religious values attached to marriage and divorce and want to establish a Western society.”Muslim-majority Bangladesh has a constitution based on the four pillars of nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism.However, Haque said his supporters wanted Islamic law.”We will implement sharia,” Haque said, insisting all would be treated fairly.”Everything will be guided by the Koran… under an Islamic welfare state, all, regardless of their faith, will be treated justly.”That would include capital punishment for blasphemy against Islam.”We demand death sentences for speaking against Allah, tarnishing the image of the Prophet, and offending Muslims,” Haque said.”There is no room for negotiation in this regard.”

Thousands in Indian-administered Kashmir with “resistance tattoos” including assault rifles inked to oppose New Delhi’s authority have been lining up to scrub them from their bodies, fearing police retribution after a deadly attack on tourists last week.Basit Bashir receives up to 100 people, mostly men, every day at his laser clinic in the main city of Srinagar, hovering swiftly over designs ranging from AK-47 rifles to Islamic symbols such as a crescent moon.”I have safely removed AK-47 and similar type tattoos from the arms and necks of more than 1,000 young people using laser,” Bashir told AFP at his clinic in the old quarter of Srinagar as he blasted high-intensity light pulses to break up the ink.Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, with both governing the disputed territory separately and claiming it in its entirety.That long-running conflict has shot back to attention after gunmen targeting tourists carried out the deadliest attack on civilians in a quarter of a century in the Himalayan territory, killing 26 men on April 22 in Pahalgam.Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the Kashmir attack — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.India blames Pakistan and, while Islamabad denies any role, troops from the nuclear-armed neighbours have repeatedly fired at each other across the Line of Control, the de facto border in contested Kashmir.”After Pahalgam, we have seen a rise in the number of people with a crescent or AK-47 tattoos coming in for removal,” 28-year-old Bashir said.One young man came in this week with an AK-47 tattoo after friends told him it was “better to get it removed” since the situation was “very precarious”, he said.- ‘Fearful young’ -In Indian-controlled Kashmir, body tattoos have been a form of political expression, like graffiti, since an armed rebellion against Indian rule erupted in 1989.Rebel groups — largely crushed in recent years — demand Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan, and tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.But deeply held anti-India sentiment has remained.Many who grew up during the violent uprising had their bodies inked with symbols expressing not just resentment towards Indian rule but also their religious identity.Bashir, the laser technician, said he initially started erasing tattoos depicting Muslim religious symbols.”They wanted the tattoos removed, believing it was prohibited in Islam, and wanted to be buried as pure after death,” he said.But others with pro-independence slogans started coming in big numbers after 2019, when New Delhi cancelled the region’s partial autonomy and clamped down on dissent and protests.Thousands were arrested and civil liberties were drastically curtailed.Police and security forces increased surveillance following the 2019 change in the territory’s status.They punished political expression hinting at resistance or a reference to the disputed nature of Kashmir in any form — even on social media.”I started getting a stream of fearful young men and women seeking their tattoos to be safely removed,” Bashir said.On some days more than 150 people turned up at his clinic, prompting him to buy a new machine for a million rupees (nearly $12,000).”Many of them told me their stories of being harassed by police for their tattoos showing any anti-India sentiment”, he said. – ‘Interrogation’ -The rush for having tattoos erased for fear of police reprisal has now spawned more than 20 other laser clinics across Srinagar, charging between 300 and 3,000 rupees ($3.50-$35) for the job, depending on the tattoo’s size.Sensing the rush, Bashir said he had trained in India’s Gujarat state to learn how to erase tattoos safely.”People come from all across Kashmir,” Bashir said. “Many have told me their horrific stories of facing police interrogation for their tattoos.”Many were hesitant, fearful of speaking about younger motivations for the tattoo.”I get rebuked by my family and school friends all the time for my tattoos,” a student said, clenching his teeth during the painful procedure.”I can’t deal with it anymore, that is why I came here”.Another, a lawyer hoping to find a match for marriage, said she had an assault rifle tattooed on her arm during the 1990s when the armed rebellion was at its peak.”That is what I had seen all around me during my childhood — soldiers and militants wielding and firing from their AK-47s,” she said, declining to be identified for fear of reprisal.”Everything has changed since then,” she said, showing the blisters that now replaced the rifle after two rounds of laser. “These things are trouble.”