Staff Reporter :
In the wake of recent killings, the home ministry is going to open a crime control cell which will work round the clock in a bid to fight terrorism across the country.
The additional secretary of the Home Ministry, Abu Hena Muhammad Rahmatul Munim will act as the chief of the counter-terrorism cell, sources in the home ministry said.
“We are going to set up counter-terrorism cell round the clock in order to fight terrorism across the country,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters at his Secretariat office on Wednesday.
Asaduzzaman Khan earlier had a meeting with the US ambassador Marcia Bernicat and discussed with her various issues specially relating to recent killings of USAID official and LGBT magazine editor Xulhaz Mannan and his friend Mahbub Tonoy and Rajshahi University professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee.
They also discussed the murder of a Bangladeshi couple Golam Rabbi and his wife Shamima Rabbi at San Jose of California in the United States.
After the meeting the US ambassador Marcia Bernicat told journalists that she just met with the Home Minister and the heads of the police forces to discuss the latest killing incidents.
“They are our strong partners. But they can’t do this job alone, none of us can. We all have to do this together,” she said.
“We are working very hard in line with our counter-terrorism cooperations principle and I can assure you that my government wants to help Bangladesh,” she said.
US ambassador said that the US wants to make sure that the country has all the tools its needs for this fight.
She termed the killings as barbaric saying, “I want to say to you all today that no human being deserves the death he got. It doesn’t matter what you believe, it doesn’t matter what you write, it doesn’t matter who you love and it certainly doesn’t matter whether you pray to a god or not. You don’t deserve to be killed.”
Asaduzzaman Khan said that “I urged the US ambassador to share any information they had, be it intelligentsia or any other kind of information, with the Bangladesh government.”
The Home Minister informed the US ambassador that they are expanding units of police force to increase efficiency.
“I also told her (Marcia Bernicat) to arrange training for our officers, so that we can work together,” he said, adding Bernicat had welcomed the proposal and assured of necessary supports. The US ambassador mourned the brutal killing of USAID official and LGBT magazine editor Xulhaz Mannan and his friend Mahbub Tonoy on Monday and said the embassy family offered their prayers for Xulhaz before they visited his cemetery.
