The government yesterday sought army backing to tackle bomb and grenade attacks, recovery of explosives and death threats that have sent panic waves across Bangladesh.
The home ministry at a law and order monitoring meeting yesterday sought training, technical and logistic support for the police to detect and defuse bombs.
Paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) asked its personnel in the bordering areas to mount a watch to block the way abroad of 13 suspects of the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League (AL) rally.
The suspects include Mukul, charge-sheeted accused in the Badda arms, grenade and time bomb seizure.
The home ministry meeting also
decided to form four squads bringing together explosives experts from the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and police, who will remain alert in police control room round the clock and rush to the scene on information of bombs and death threats.
The teams will be assigned to keep an anticrime watch on four crime zones -- east, west, south and north -- in the capital.
The army support was sought after top police officers told the meeting that they took longer time to detect and defuse bombs for lack of equipment.
The three-hour meeting from 11:00am at the home ministry also decided to seek army help to train up policemen for quick detection and defusion of bombs in the wake of a string of retrievals.
An intelligence unit will work to track down people responsible for bomb hoaxes. The intelligence unit will find out the criminals and file specific cases to bring them to justice.
The meeting, chaired by State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar, appreciated identification of threatening email senders leading to an end to such practice and observed that identification of people threatening bomb attacks would also stop the scourge.
Heads of the BDR, ansar, National Security Intelligence and field level officials of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligent, Criminal Investigation Department, Detective Branch, Special Branch and police attended the meeting.
Emerging from the meeting, Babar said a vested quarter was responsible for bomb hoaxes across Bangladesh to upset peace.
He resented the failure to find out the culprits and directed the authorities to employ full strength at the filed level to hunt down criminals.
A special awareness programme will be taken in educational institutions, community centres, markets and different establishments to tackle bomb and bomb threats, meeting sources said.
The home ministry decisions came in the wake of a spate of grenade attacks and threats in Dhaka, Sylhet and launches in the river.
Unnamed callers in Dhaka threatened to blow up Dhaka University, big installations like Sena Kalyan Bhaban, schools and media offices.
Anonymous callers in Sylhet threatened to tear down Osmani International Airport and Radio office and some educational institutions last month.
Soon after the grisly grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka on August 21, live grenades were seized from Railway Supermarket at Gulistan and Dhaka Central Jail.
A powerful bomb explosion in Sylhet on Monday claimed two lives and a 10 kg antitank shell was seized from the kitchen of one of the victims on Tuesday.
Interpol experts and local investigators collected names and addresses of 13 of 22 suspects of the August 21 grenade attacks and handed over the list of the 13 to BDR on Tuesday night asking them to keep an eye on them to stop their escape.
Mukul figured high on the list of grenade attack suspects in the review of the AL rally bombing footage. The attack killed 19 people, including AL's Women's Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman and injured over 200 others.
The sources did not give the name of other suspects.