Blasts and bleeding

Crisis always curses the poor the most. The driver of the taxi cab who drove me to Jahangirnagar University campus last night tells me the horror that he and other drivers have to face every day. After leaving the cab in the garage at 12 pm. they usually return home. The police on duty take them to custody on "suspicion" of security breach, and after getting some money, release him the next morning. He further informed me that his income from driving a cab -- the sole means by which he feeds a family of five -- came down by 20 per cent over the last few days.

The vendor that sells vegetables to us reported of his fall in income due to transport strikes and hartals following the blasts.

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The above episodes are only a few that indicate the impact of the on-going ferocities that have caused us to forfeit our freedom to move, transact, speak, and lead a life of healthy citizens. Panic all around grips the country. The most recent suicide bomb blasts at Gazipur and Chittagong seem to suggest that the society that we live in is becoming more and more insecure. According to the opinions of the concerned citizens and politicians -- including a large number of them belonging to the ruling party -- the country is poised at the brink of its gravest security problem not even observed during the period of the war of liberation. The question is why?

It is perhaps because we have tacitly encouraged the evil forces to ply their trade by not taking them to book at a very early stage. By early stage we mean the time when newspaper reports ran galore about their atrocities in the northern part of the country. When people were killed and hanged in trees and when the fundamentalist forces paraded in the streets with heads held high and chests puffed out, we underestimated their power to make our lives hell within a span of two years or so.

When the Prime Minister of the country wanted Bangla Bhai to be arrested long ago, a group of her party men allegedly protected him by giving him shelter. The expelled BNP lawmaker Mr Abu Hena described how his fervent appeal to contain the terrorists went in vain in the face of strong support from some of the members of the parliament and the cabinet. The proverbial stitch in time could possibly have saved us if adequate arrangements had made at that time.

Besides that point, the fact that a large number grenade attacks and killings of politicians and educationists all over the country in the recent past did not result in the culprits being brought to book must have also served to encourage the terrorists.

We can cite the examples of the grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina and her party colleagues on August 21, 2004, the brutal attacks on Ahsanullah Master MP, SAMA Kibria MP, Dr Yunus, and Prof. Humayun Azad should have revealed the reality of the threat to the government. It is only when the bomb blasts took place in courts and common places that the government started to show some signs of sincerity.

We think that the government has to take into serious consideration the allegation that a portion of those running the country administration are in fact fueling the fire. Mr Abu Hena's observations could be the basis for an investigation to identify the main culprits. Without removing the dead rats from the well, the lifting of water and pouring fresh water is not going to solve the problem permanently. To make the appeal for a national dialogue convincing, the government must shed its support to those who are alleged to have links with the terrorists. The government has missed a number of golden opportunities to tame the terrorists but a failure at this moment might cost us heavily. The sooner we realize the gravity of the situation, the better it is for the nation, especially for BNP.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.