THE nation commemorates the first anniversary of the country’s most gruesome militant attack at the capital’s Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1 with love for the victims and sharing pain with their families. Militants killed 22 people including 18 foreigners while six of them were also killed passing shock waves to the nation as well as to the world. Such incident must not happen again.
The killing of foreigners, mainly Japanese aid workers and Italian nationals mainly running buying houses for major brands of European marketing chain was unthinkable in a peaceful country like Bangladesh. Such carnage was unprecedented and the occurrence remains a great mystery unsolved. The behaviour of the killers does not convince many that they themselves were not expecting to escape alive. Police are still busting militants’ hideouts at regular intervals throughout the country – at least 20 major raids were carried out and 57 militants were killed since the Holey Artisan. Doubt remains about the true character of those killed as militants. In most cases the militants committed suicide to kill themselves with family members.
Because the matter of militancy is not discussed openly, we are inclined to suggest that the people should be taken into confidence to find out the whole truth about terrorism in the country.
Bangladesh suffered the worst image loss to the global community from the Holey Artisan attack. Some preventive actions have been taken by the law enforcing agencies. But police action and police assessment can never explore terrorism. Real terrorism is much more than a crime.
We may be wrong, but unless proved otherwise, we will insist on open political debate on terrorism in Bangladesh. Terrorism is not a secret activity and the politics behind terrorism has to be understood. It is our firm belief that we in Bangladesh do not deserve to be known as a terrorist country. Some vicious circles may be at work to harm the country.
Following Holey Artisan mayhem export order then suffered heavily and donor nations withdrew their workers in development projects. They put travel alerts drying arrival of tourists while Australia and Britain imposed ban on air cargo fearing it may hide explosive devices. Although they lifted the ban later on, the European Union (EU) has now stamped ban on air cargo from Dhaka on similar security concerns. The country’s bad time is not coming to the end because we do not have open politics to discuss national interest fearlessly. Such open debate would have been possible if we had representative parliament with a vibrant opposition but that is missing. So our efforts to fight terrorism will remain a secret affair.
The killing of foreigners, mainly Japanese aid workers and Italian nationals mainly running buying houses for major brands of European marketing chain was unthinkable in a peaceful country like Bangladesh. Such carnage was unprecedented and the occurrence remains a great mystery unsolved. The behaviour of the killers does not convince many that they themselves were not expecting to escape alive. Police are still busting militants’ hideouts at regular intervals throughout the country – at least 20 major raids were carried out and 57 militants were killed since the Holey Artisan. Doubt remains about the true character of those killed as militants. In most cases the militants committed suicide to kill themselves with family members.
Because the matter of militancy is not discussed openly, we are inclined to suggest that the people should be taken into confidence to find out the whole truth about terrorism in the country.
Bangladesh suffered the worst image loss to the global community from the Holey Artisan attack. Some preventive actions have been taken by the law enforcing agencies. But police action and police assessment can never explore terrorism. Real terrorism is much more than a crime.
We may be wrong, but unless proved otherwise, we will insist on open political debate on terrorism in Bangladesh. Terrorism is not a secret activity and the politics behind terrorism has to be understood. It is our firm belief that we in Bangladesh do not deserve to be known as a terrorist country. Some vicious circles may be at work to harm the country.
Following Holey Artisan mayhem export order then suffered heavily and donor nations withdrew their workers in development projects. They put travel alerts drying arrival of tourists while Australia and Britain imposed ban on air cargo fearing it may hide explosive devices. Although they lifted the ban later on, the European Union (EU) has now stamped ban on air cargo from Dhaka on similar security concerns. The country’s bad time is not coming to the end because we do not have open politics to discuss national interest fearlessly. Such open debate would have been possible if we had representative parliament with a vibrant opposition but that is missing. So our efforts to fight terrorism will remain a secret affair.
