International hand of cooperation welcome

That we have succeeded in encaging the two terrorist supremoes, however belatedly, demonstrated public urging and pressure for their capture and finally their cooperation in netting them, is a proven fact. But where we go from here and how we use the arrests in obliterating all traces of ideological terrorism to offset its recurrence is something that not only the whole world would be watching out for but which we should unfailingly do in our best national interest. So, the top priority issue now is credible, transparent and prosecution-wise result-oriented. Remember, weak prosecution got Bangla Bhai off the hook once!

So far as the externalities to militancy operations go -- in terms of suspected motivational nurture, financing and networking or apparently disconnected, isolated working outfits in response to a high degree of alert the great need for globally and regionally interactive intelligence and technological sharing efforts cannot be overemphasised. It will be a rank folly in today's world to view terrorism as endogenous.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

But the emphasis of cooperation should be not on any critical dependency relationship, but on a self-propelling and effective local capacity building to fight off terrorism on a sustainable basis. Where we have gaps in technology, equipment, intelligence sharing and analytical skills, we do need filling in. The idea is to benefit from the experience (including pitfalls) and latest know-how and technology of the advanced countries.

Overall, it is highly important that the government takes the opposition along to combat terrorism from here on. For that to happen the ruling party and the opposition need to become more respectful of each other. Why we say this is because there is a strong belief that if the government and opposition had not blamed each other for the series of bombings that rocked the nation and bled it, the religious extremists wouldn't have got a free rein to spread their networks and perpetrate their crime with a sense of impunity. We suggest there be a cross-party committee, either in parliament or outside, as a national committee to oversee progress of investigation, prosecution and trial in the cases involving the top terror leaders and following other vital operational aspects of counter-terrorism.