DHAKA: Bangladeshi authorities have shut down nearly 3,000 charities, including a number of organisations that were allegedly “spreading militancy” in the Muslim-majority nation, an official said today. Bangladesh’s secular Awami League government has made tackling militancy a top priority after the country was hit in 2005 by a series of deadly bombings by Islamic groups seeking to impose Sharia law in the country.

Arshad Hossain, director of the social services department, said licences for 2,931 non-government organisations were cancelled this month after they were found to be breaching government guidelines.

“They were given licences

to run social welfare projects

in healthcare, education

and nutrition but many were

involved in unrelated work,

including spreading militancy,” he told AFP.

This was the first time the

government has taken such

significant steps against allegedly bogus charities, he said, adding that the licences of another 3,000 groups will likely be cancelled soon.

Bangladesh has been seeking to crack down on groups often bankrolled by donors in wealthy Muslim countries that it says use aid projects as a way to spread radical Islamic ideas in the country of 144 million.

In April last year police charged a Bangladeshi-born British charity chief accused of using an Islamic school on a remote southern Bangladeshi island as a cover to store weapons and explosives. The same month authorities deported a Sudanese after he was accused of using the local branch of Kuwait-based charity to train Islamic militants.