Editorial Desk: The Deputy Foreign Minister of Japan Seiji Kihara now on a visit to Dhaka to take back the bodies of seven Japanese nationals wanted to know in what situation and at what time they were slain at Spanish restaurant. Obviously he made the most pertinent question when his nation and the entire world including Bangladesh are grieving the tragic death of so many young people in Dhaka in a terrific act of savagery. In fact the entire Japanese people are finding it hard to accept. The Japan government has sent the expert team to Bangladesh to help in our metro-rail project. Their gruesome killing in militant attacks was not even in their imagination; as Bangladesh has never thought of it before. Japanese Prime Minister Sinzo Abe said it is a cruel act and not pardonable. He has also pledged assistance to fight terrorism and sent a security expert team to this end. We understand the emotion of the government of Japan and its people at this time but we also believe Japan and such other nations standing by our side at this critical time should also use their influence to bring change in Bangladesh’s domestic politics. This is a fight that must be fought politically by bringing change at social level. Autocracy feed terrorism as an alternative by extremists. But that is not rational. We are not fools as not to understand. We are not incompetent as a nation, only we are unable to do what is good for us. Use of more force will only make more bloody reprisals that we don’t want to see. We must say the government must stop exploiting militancy to take advantage from international community by putting all blames on the extremists. Meanwhile, the Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister’s queries apparently came at a time when the government is also attempting to use the tragedy blaming others. But question remains how practical the government’s rescue plan was when the hostages were killed. The question is also asked in many other quarters to find out the critical answer. The Inspector General of Police A K Shahidul Haque said the victims were killed in 20 minutes of hostage taking. Then the question is why the government worked on nightlong rescue plan to free the hostages. The siege started at 21.00 pm but the commando operation was launched next morning at 7.30 am. Meanwhile specially trained commandos were flown in from Sylhet to rescue the hostages. If the media reports were correct that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered to storm the building to rescue the hostages in next morning, why she delayed the decision by about 10 hours to clear the plan. More significantly, the six terrorists who continued the hostage stand off freed the remaining 13 in early morning before they decided to leave saying that they would meet them in heaven. So in the opinion of many analysts, virtually the raid on the building produced nothing but the killing of the six terrorists while leaving. We don’t know whether the Prime Minister’s security experts advised her to delay the rescue plan through next morning. It is reminiscent of the Pilkhana tragedy of 2009 where security experts had also delayed the Prime Minister’s decision by about 36 hours to move in commando in the BDR headquarters to rescue the hostages. But when they finally entered the area they found that errant BDR soldiers who revolted against senior officers had already massacred over 57 army officers. It appears that like the Pilkhana tragedy, the government has also failed to do anything meaningful to save the Gulshan restaurant victims. It is only making big crimes of a successful commando raids to mislead the people at home and abroad. But nobody is so easily misled. We with heavy heart and immense sorrow for the dead ones say and assert that we are not an incompetent nation, but the world has unkindly ignored the crisis in Bangladesh, and we were unable to do what we could have done competently to stop terrorism for finding a safe place.
