In spite of massive police surveillance, killing by snipers or hacking to death has not stopped. Most of such killings are politically motivated. Police arrested a member of the ruling party on suspicion that he was representing himself as a special police force RAB. In another incident an innocent foreigner was shot at and seriously injured on Wednesday in Dinajpur.Let us make Bangladesh what our people want it to be –tolerant, peaceful and prosperous and safe for all. But that is not possible by those who do not believe in dialogue and who are always in search of enemies among the people. The government is fighting both against democracy and terrorism. The government cannot win such a war. Heavy presence of police ready to shoot may be serving as a short term confidence building measure among the people and the foreigners. But when such large scale police presence does not bear any fruit, it boomerangs. Breakdown of law and order becomes inevitable. The government as a whole needs to be competent for good governance. Peace and security cannot be achieved by police separately or in isolation from the government’s overall competence.The terrorist killers are not yet organised or equipped for a big attack. Their number is few but arrests of the political opponents are made in massive numbers. Such massive arrests of political opponents cannot be justified as punishing the few true killers. The political killers are not ordinary killers to be stopped by police action alone. They are also not easily to be caught. To think that opposition politics can be eliminated by police action is not political foresight. In such politics of elimination, the nature of political opposition changes and becomes violent. The opposition to government never dies. Call it conspiracy against the government if you so like.If BNP or Jamaat is to be finished, do so politically by offering better politics and not worse politics. Mr H S Suhrawardhy, the founder of Awami League, former Prime Minister of Pakistan made the communist party non-existent through his democratic politics. He defeated their anti-American policy by his famous logic of 0 + 0 = 0.The educated people and free press have no discernible role in Bangladesh in influencing of the country’s affairs. But their roles are vindicated by honest advice for good governance. In our politics, the free press or free debate is a political anathema not to be welcomed.What is most encouraging is, Bangladesh can easily live in peace and harmony without the fear of terrorism. The government itself is creating terrorism within the country as it is evident from more and more violence in the country. But our own divisiveness and ruthlessness in politics is not something that cannot be ended. Not any particular class but we all together fought for the politics of free debate and free press. The question is who have changed whom.We cannot be so blind that we do not see what a frightful situation we have created for ourselves. Nobody is safe and nobody is sure that good sense will prevail in the government other than emotion unconnected with the present needs. No matter who think how powerful they are and how much money they have amassed from corrupt politics or genuine business, no sensible person enjoys a life free from deep concern about insecurity of life. We have to set our politics right to make life safe for all. The few cannot be safe where lives of many are not. To be more precise, we cannot fight democracy and terrorism together. We have to embrace democracy to fight terrorism.
