This weekend, many Canadians were surprised to hear that a former Ontario resident was killed in a shootout with police in Bangladesh.

Tamim Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-Canadian chemistry grad from the University of Windsor, is one of the suspected masterminds behind a July terrorist attack on a bakery in the capital of Dhaka, which left 20 people dead.

Police say he was the head of Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, which is a banned militant group, though media reports have also linked him to ISIS. He and two other militants engaged in heavy gunfire with police rather than being taken alive.

There's a second link to the West. A permanent resident of Canada, Tahmid Hasib Khan, is being held in custody in connection with the bakery attack.

His family maintains that he's innocent and only happened to be in the dining establishment popular with foreigners when the killings occurred.

Why Bangladesh?

The public is used to hearing about terrorism in some Arab countries, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But Bangladesh has largely been off the radar screen of the western media even though it has a huge population of nearly 170 million.

However, the possibility of it becoming a base for terrorism was foreshadowed in a 2005 book called Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan, by Indian journalist Hiranmay Karlekar. He's a consultant editor of the English-language Pioneer and a former editor of the Hindustan Times.

Several years ago, I read this well-documented book, which linked elements within the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, to a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh. The country has traditionally been known for cultural plurality and religious tolerance, but that reputation is changing with the increase of extremism.

In essence, Karlekar made the case that extremists within the ISI were trying to reverse the effects of Bangladeshi independence by promoting Islamism through various militant groups. If these militants succeeded, this would ultimate renew the country's friendship with Pakistan and pit Bangladesh against its larger neighbour, India, which helped it gain independence in 1971. 

According to Karlekar's research, outsiders were trying to convert the country to Islamism, even though this went against the grain of Bengali culture. Hence the book's title, which suggested that this could lead Bangladesh down the road of becoming a failed state because of this process of Talibanization.

Bangladesh was created when the former East Pakistan separated from what was then known as West Pakistan to achieve linguistic and cultural freedom. It came with the help of the Indian army, which fought a brief war against Pakistan to ensure Bangladesh's liberation. 

History set stage for current problems

Current prime minister Sheikh Hasina's father was the country's first head of state. However, Sheikh Mujibar Raman, was murdered in a coup in 1975. Lieut.-Gen. Ziaur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh's military forces in the fight for independence, later took over but was killed by members of the military in 1981.

Rahman's widow, Khaleda Zia, became prime minister in 1991 when democracy returned. Hasina's party won the next election in 1996, but Zia returned as prime minister in 2001.

That set the stage for a devastating grenade attack on the leadership of Hasina's secularist party, the Awami League, in Dhaka in 2004. Nearly two dozen Awami League leaders were massacred but Hasina survived. She has been prime minister since 2009.

In 2014, Hasina accused Zia and her son of masterminding the bloody attack on the Awami League 10 years earlier. In effect, Hasina accused Zia's family of trying to kill the next generation of secular leaders after already murdering her father in 1975.

The allegations were denied by the Zia family, who claimed they played no role in the killing of Hasina's father.

Prof claimed militants have access to financing

Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan described how Zia's party had courted Islamic militants to retain power. But the author suggested that this would come at a terrible price as extremists moved into key positions within the civilian government, military, and police forces.

In a recent column in the Pioneer, Karlekar warned that the leading Bangladeshi extremist organization, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, and its front groups have amassed a significant economic infrastructure to finance future terrorism. 

He cited Dhaka University economist Abul Barkat's 2007 paper called "Economics of Fundamentalism and the Growth of Political Islam in Bangladesh", which declared the "estimated net profit of economic fundamentalism would be about $200 million".

“The highest share of such profit, 27 per cent (of net total profit) comes from financial institutions (banks, insurance company, leasing company etc.)," Barkat wrote. "The second highest, 20.8 per cent of the total net profit comes from NGOs.”

In addition, Barkat maintained that 10.8 percent of these profits came from trading concerns and another 10.4 percent came from the pharmaceutical industry and health institutions.

Karlekar wrote that it will be "no easy task" dismantling this financing network, noting that it will require a broad swath of policies to encourage Bengali nationalism. He urged beefing up police forces with minority members and the singing of the national anthem and instruction on the country's war of independence in all schools, including private religious institutions known as madrassas.

"Bangladesh has daunting task ahead and all who value modernity, secularism and democracy, will have to stand with it," Karlekar wrote.