Three years have passed after the grisly terror attack at Holey Artisan Cafe in the capital's Gulshan area. On 1 July 2016, in what was the worst attack of its kind in the history of the country, 29 people including two cops, 18 foreigners and five attackers were killed, leaving all the peace-loving people stunned in grief. The incident that took place in a highly secured diplomatic zone raised a big question about the efficiency of the law enforcement agencies.
In these three years after the incident, various steps have been taken to modernize and strengthen the anti-terror agencies of the country. Alongside the Police, all other agencies concerned such as RAB, SWAT have remained on their toes against the various extremist groups. They have operated countrywide drives against the extremists all through the year, in which many of the suspected extremists including some of the kingpins have been killed. Of late, a separate unit in the police named 'Anti-Terrorism Unit' has been formed. This will work exclusively to curb terrorism in the country.
Meanwhile, the fanatics also have tried to make their existence known by making occasional attacks, primarily targeting the law enforcers. This might be because the militants want to demoralize the law enforcers, who have apparently become successful in pushing them to the corner. In the sense that the law enforcers have been able to put the fanatics in an uncomfortable situation we can definitely give them credit for their success. However, it is also true that the success attained so far is still long away to be felt complacent with. In fact, there are obvious reasons to worry about.
The fact that needs to be kept in mind that losing their organized armed strength terrorists have now scattered away to the remote areas and got mingled with common people. This might turn out to a great threat to the security of general citizens in the long run as the terrorists might become desperate any time and resort to attempts at random attacks on innocent public.
Therefore, it is very much necessary that our law enforcers rake through the terrorists who have mixed with ordinary people and stamp out militancy from the country. We also feel apart from destroying terrorists, this is also necessary that their sponsors and the cells that control them, wherever they might be, are also destroyed. And in this case, coordination of both intelligence and anti-terror efforts and use of technology rather than only manpower are crucial.
Despite the fact that the present administration led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been following a 'zero tolerance' policy against terrorism and religious extremism since assuming office in 2009 and that Bangladesh's continuous endeavor to tackle the growing menace of terrorism has already yielded positive results and it has earned global appreciation for its efforts, we are still far away from attaining full success in annihilating militancy and religious fanaticism. In order to do so we need to let a truly professional investigating agency grow in accordance with the dictates of law. Criminal occurrences need to be viewed from outside a political angle, and political sagacity and patience need to be demonstrated to fight the painfully long battle against rising extremism. Besides, awareness at the personal, family and society level might prove to be an effective tool to check spread of radicalism in society.
The PM herself has said time and again that people's united efforts can enable the nation to combat militancy and terrorism. She stressed the need for a more effective role of the guardians, imams of mosques and members of law enforcement agencies in building a peaceful Bangladesh.
We endorse the PM's statements completely. There is no denying guardians in the family have a big role to play in shaping children's character. Imams or the religious leaders also can play a pivotal role by preaching the true message of their respective religions and restraining people from taking the dangerous and inhumane path of militancy. We feel children's academic institutions and the society as a whole have a bigger part to play in this respect. Most of the Bangladeshi militants choose this dangerous path being influenced by older friends at college or university level, in some cases by their teachers, who have already joined militancy.
The fact that the attackers of the Holey Artisan incident were from brilliant academic and rich social backgrounds has proven our earlier assumption i.e. the students of madrasahs, particularly the ebtedayee ones, are ones who join militancy and extremism, wrong. Therefore, we think educational institutions, particularly the colleges and universities, have to be more attentive to their students. They also need to be careful in appointing teachers and check their background before appointing them.
It has been found by observing the Bangladeshi youths who joined militant activities are predominantly either from the lowest or the uppermost echelon of society. The poor ones take up militancy out of frustration, frustration of being jobless or penniless, while the ones from the aristocratic class adopt this path out of fantasy. The former choose this path as a way to get solvency, while the latter choose it as a means for getting heaven in the after world as they have nothing to acquire in this world. However, both of them are unaware of the fact that none of their desires would be accomplished by opting for this path. This is where the society can come forward.
Every conscious person from family to national level has to join each other to wage a social campaign to make the derailed youths aware of the futility of their aspirations. We must work hard to uplift the age-old social and religious values and morals to counter the militant ideologies. The media, as well as the social media, can be used as very good platforms to preach this anti-militancy campaign.
The anniversary of the Holey Artisan massacre calls for a fresh pledge from all of us, including the government, administration, political parties and general people, to stay united in our battle against radicalism, militancy and terrorism. One believes if we can work concertedly with honest intent, we will definitely overcome the present predicament soon. And there is no alternative for us than to attain success in our efforts to drive away militancy and terrorism from the country. This is because our inability to eliminate the fanatics from the country will definitely cast a dark shadow on our national life and put ourselves and our future generation in peril.
M Munir Hossain is News Editor, Bangladesh Post.
