A Congressional resolution has called Dhaka to stop radical organizations that pose threat to the country’s stability and secular democracy.

A resolution moved in the US House of Representatives by Congressman Jim Bankes also calls on the Government to heed the Bangladesh Election Commission’s request to ensure security for minorities and maintain communal harmony for a peaceful election.

Observing that repeated attacks on religious minorities, expanding religious intolerance, and growing destabilization caused by radical groups, including JeI and Islami Chhatra Shibir, undermine United States economic and strategic interests in Bangladesh; the resolution says that there is a growing trend of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh tied to pro-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria activity.

Noting that Jamaat-e-Islami, Hefazat-e-Islam, and other theocratic extremist groups pose an immediate and ongoing threat to Bangladesh’s stability and secular democracy, and religious minorities remain at grave risk of continuing violence, the resolution calls on the Bangladeshi Government to stop radical organizations, such as Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Chhatra Shibir, and Hefazat-e-Islam, who pose an ongoing threat to the country’s stability and secular democracy.

It also urges the United States Agency for International Development and the State Department to halt all partnerships and funding arrangements with groups affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Chhatra Shibir, and Hefazat-e-Islam.

Bangladesh plays a critical role in the safe and voluntary repatriation of over 800,000 Rohingya Muslims who have taken refuge in Bangladesh from religious and political persecution in Myanmar, it said.

According to the resolution, religious minorities have been targeted by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Islami Chhatra Shibir, during previous elections. As a result of which 495 Hindu homes were damaged, 585 shops were attacked or looted, and 169 temples were vandalized between November 2013 and January 2014, according to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, it said.

The resolution has been sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.