August 21 carnage

It is true that 15 arrests have been made and that the police have in hand a confessional statement that implicates 10 known criminals allegedly absconding in Kolkata. But the fact is that the various terrorists who are responsible for killing more than 148 people since 1999 have not been brought to justice, and that the authorities remain in the dark as to the extent of the threat.

August 21 was supposed to be a waxke-up call. The one benefit to come out of the unspeakable tragedy was supposed to be that it rammed home the fact that there are dangerous extremists in our midst and that the government needed to take serous action to safeguard the nation.

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How then is it possible for more close to 500 bombs to be exploded in 63 districts with the government remaining clueless? The only thing worse than the criminal incompetence shown by the authorities is the realisation that this happened even after they were supposed to be on high alert.

The political parties responded to August 21 the same way they have to last week's blasts -- by pointing fingers at each other. These kinds of unsupported accusations are not helpful and only succeed in hampering the investigation and letting the real culprits off the hook.

What needs to be done is for the government to pull out all the stops in tackling terror. Last week's blasts show that, shamefully, this had not been done. There is no excuse for the government's negligence which is a severe black mark on its record. The point now is to swiftly take the security measures which should have been taken in the aftermath of the Bangabandhu Avenue carnage, but which weren't.

The best way for all of us to honour the memory of the August 21 dead is for the nation to unite to ensure that the terrorists behind the attack are brought to justice.