Editorial
The grenade hauls
Countrywide mop-up operation needed
WITH each passing day information are pouring in of the seizures of grenades and firearms abandoned by extremist groups. Since the joint forces have been on pursuit of variously labelled terrorist elements on the basis of information, mainly gathered from arrested suspects, the clandestine operatives are on the run. That explains the discovery of abandoned weapons. There is a growing suspicion, however, that substantial number of bombs or firearms may have been hidden away in various parts of the country. The success of the joint forces gives us hope that the remaining arms caches will be unearthed soon.
At least eight grenade attacks have been executed since 2003 with scores of people dying and sustaining injuries in the process. Beginning with the April 2, 2004 Chittagong arms haul through the attack on AL rally on August 21 to the hurling of bomb at British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury to the lethal attack on AL leader SAMS Kibria, none of the investigations has been conclusive. Although arrests were made no conviction has been handed to any guilty person.
It is extremely important to note that if the investigations had established facts of the cases, these had been tried and punishment meted out to those proven guilty, then the terrorists would have been subdued. The incidence of bomb blasts and arms haul would have been few and far between.
The fact is that neighbouring Bangladesh are the volatile northeastern region of India and also Myanmar. Considerable arms smuggling takes place in the area; arms traffickers have no nationality, they are enemies of all countries. It has to be acknowledged that unless there is demand for weapons, why there would be any supply? With further raids the security forces can eliminate the danger from within. Acting on this premise, it shouldn't be difficult for RAB to track down the local militant groups' networking and linkages.
It is crucially important that the linkage factors are fully detected and eliminated. Thus we stress the need for regional cooperation which the SAARC envisages in terms of fighting arms and drugs smuggling to be accomplished on top priority basis.
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