Editorial
Pursuing the biggest arms haul case
Get to the unalloyed truth
Nearly five years ago the entire nation was rocked by the seizure of the biggest smuggled arms consignment in Chittagong. Ever since, the nation has been in the dark about the origin of the huge cache, the actors behind it, local collaborators, if any, for whom it was meant and where was it headed.
The enormity of the haul and the blatant manner in which this was being transshipped, raised an avalanche of concerns about potential security vulnerabilities of the country. The details spoke for themselves: Ten truck loads of arms and ammunitions stacked with 463 boxes containing 1790 weapons of different descriptions, nearly 11,44,000 bullets, 27,020 grenades, 6,392 magazines and 150 rocket launchers. The consignment was detected at the unlikeliest of places viz. Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Factory Ghat(CULF).
Apprehensions were expressed about whether our territory was being used as a conduit for arms trafficking, whether or not arms had already been smuggled through our terrain without our knowing it, if so, with what consequence, or if some of it found its way into local hands, or indeed, our intelligence was compromised in any way. Bordering Chittagong is an insurgency-prone area, so it added another dimension to the security concern.
The way the case got handled and investigations were carried out during the BNP-led four-party alliance government, gave rise to allegations of derailment of investigation, political complicity, and an attempted hushing up of the case from the beginning. These apprehensions were not allayed at any point.
All these unanswered questions having a bearing on national security and the fact that a score of bomb blast cases remain unresolved, all point to the enormous importance of reviving the Chittagong arms haul case. We believe the process has got underway with the confessional statements of those who knew, and this must be brought to its logical conclusion in a purely professional and transparent legal process. We have to get to the bottom of it, determine the level of local involvement, expose those who had a hand in it and bring the guilty to book. Nothing short of the whole truth that can be substantiated should be steadfastly pursued and brought to light.
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