Editorial
Tangail deaths
We should seek international assistance to trace terror bombers
At least four people are reported to have been killed in a bomb explosion at a village fair in Tangail Friday, 40 days after the cinema bombings in Mymemsingh left 19 people dead. It seems the men behind the bomb attacks are determined to destabilise the society; even take entertainment and fun out of the lives of common people in a most barbaric way.
Bomb attacks, though a relatively new phenomenon in the country, have already taken a heavy toll of human lives, and what is most worrying is that the police have not yet been able to make much progress in arresting the real culprits. The bomb mystery is still unresolved.
That has been a clear failure on the part of governments, both the former and the present one. Instead of concentrating on resolving the mystery, the ruling party appeared, and still appears, to be more concerned about making scapegoats out of its political rivals. This tendency of giving every incident a political hue has only made the task of identifying and arresting the criminals more difficult, though it is not known whether it has given any political party an edge over its rival.
Then there is the question of an incident being left behind, after routine statements are made to condemn the attackers. The cases are not pursued with due vigour and urgency. The government should not forget that when the law enforcers fail, the criminals are encouraged and emboldened. True, we do not have the necessary expertise and all the equipment to handle this particular type of crime. But adopting a do-nothing stand is not the best way to save the lives of innocent people. The government has to decide how best it can respond to the attacks, which, as the latest incident shows, are very unlikely to come to an end unless the criminals are brought to justice.
One option is to seek help from Interpol and the intelligence agencies from countries like the United States and Britain. What we mean by saying this is that the bomb attacks can no longer be treated as one of the many crimes being committed across the country. Clearly, a group of people, having little regard for human lives, is operating in order to execute some evil plan. They have to be crushed before they can cause more damage.
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