City Desk :
Integrated efforts of all government, non-government and research organizations concerned has become crucial to combat violent extremism.
Concerted efforts by the law enforcing agencies and common people, including students and other young people, can also be the best way of rooting out the social menace.
Academics and social watchdogs came up with the observation while addressing the National Consultation and Dissemination Event focusing on the role of young people in preventing violent extremism in Rajshahi.
On behalf of its ‘Amplifying Leadership of Local Youths (ALLY)’ programme, Centre for Communication and Development (CCD) Bangladesh organized the event at Hotel Mukta International supported by the European Union, reports BSS.
Additional Superintendent of Police Abul Kalam Azad, Deputy Director of Department of Youth Development Golam Mahabub, social activist Ahmed Safiuddin, Editor of Daily Sonar Desh Akbarul Hassan Millat and Executive Director of Barendra Unnayan Prochesta Foyzullah Chowdhury addressed the meeting as resource persons.
Prof Akter Banu, Prof Rabiul Islam and Associate Professor Satil Siraj from Rajshahi University also spoke on the occasion disseminating their expertise on the issue, while CCD Joint Director Shahana Parveen welcomed the participants.
The meeting was told that support from the youth community can be the effective means of freeing the society from all sorts of crimes, including violent extremism, for the sake of overall development of the country.
Large-scale promotion of proactive engagement of the youth community is very important towards combating the existing social crimes besides countering extremism.
There are multifarious reasons and risk factors behind extremism, so collective efforts of all the government and non-government organizations concerned have become crucial to combat the crimes collectively.
The, ALLY, however, is intended to amplify young people’s constructive voices and agency in addressing diverse factors of violent extremist narratives.
In the meeting, two ALLY members, Sumaiya Rahman and Zannatul Ferdous, focused on emerging trends and issues and findings on policy recommendations and streaming from research side by side with the challenges and successes.
