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Govt moves to stamp out terrorism

PM orders fresh probe into major grenade, bomb attacks

M AB UL KALA.M AZAD and HASAN J AH1D TUSHER
The government will launch a fresh investigation of terrorist activities including major grenade and bomb attacks perpetrated during the BNP-Jamaat-led four-party alliance government's regime, in an effort to identify the masterminds and their national and international links.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday instructed the home ministry to take immediate steps in that direction, so the government
may try the masterminds and stamp out terrorism from the country, sources in the government said.
Presiding over a cabinet meeting in Bangladesh Secretariat yesterday, Hasina, also the Awami League (AL) president, directed the minister and state minister for home affairs to submit a complete report mentioning names of the masterminds and their links.
At the meeting, the home ministry submitted a report on terrorism which failed to impress the prime minister as she felt it was
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incomplete and traditional.
Returning to the ministry after the meeting, State Minister for Home Affairs Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj had a meeting with Home Secretary Abdul Karim, where he censured the home secretary for submitting an incomplete report to the cabinet.
The state minister instructed the home secretary to re-submit the report incorporating all aspects of terrorist activities during the BNP-Jamaat regime between 2001 and 2006.
At the cabinet meeting, Haslna, who is now under public pressure to fulfil her party's election pledges, stressed on forming an antiterrorism taskforce and sought regional and international cooperation to thatend.
"It's not possible to curb terrorism alone. United efforts are needed to tackle the problem," the prime minister was quoted as saying by her Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad while briefing reporters following the cabinet meeting.
Presiding over the meeting that started at 11:00am and ended at 1:35pm, the prime minister also directed the home ministry and other ministries and departments concerned to be vigilant, so no social unrest may flare up. She called upon all to beware of terrorism.
A number of grenade and bomb attacks took place during the BNP-Jamaat regime, th& ;qw§t, of which was the grenade attack on an AL rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the
capital on August 21,2004.
The rising capacity of Islamist terrorists in the coun try came into focus of the media when synchronised bomb blasts took place in 63 districts on August 17 the next year.
Bomb attacks also killed former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria, and severely wounded former British high commissioner Anwar Chowdhury, while a string of suicide attacks in several districts killed judges, lawyers and cops.
Now-banned Islamist terrorist organisation Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was held responsible for all the attacks other than the August 21 grenade attack in which Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped with ear injuries, but 23 others were killed.
The erstwhile BNP-Jamaat government launched a crackdown on JMB and captured its lynchpins, some of whom were later tried and hanged.
But allegations are there that the Islamist terrorists were hanged hurriedly without allowing them to speak to the media, leaving many questions unresolved including who were the patrons and the sources of their funding.
There are also allegations that many BNP and Jamaat leaders were behind the rise of Islamist terrorism in the country. The allegations go even as far as claiming that the BNP-Jamaat government manipu-mvesriganpi^to.sa^ sqnje of .the masterminds, efttadkers, tirid their patrons.
"We want to know why the
then government was in the dark about the coordinated bomb attacks across the country on August 17, 2005, who were the masterminds, and whether there was any national and International link,’ Sohel Taj told The Daily Star after the cabinet meeting.
At the meeting, Hasina also told her cabinet colleagues to concentrate more on action than talk.
"She told us to work more and talk less," a cabinet minister told The Daily Star adding that Hasina once again laid emphasis on maintaining law and order, curbing of commodity prices, and ensuring smooth supply of fertilizer to farmers.
The prime minister's press secretary said the ordinances promulgated during the caretaker government regime also came up in the meeting's discussion. "The prime minister already talked to senior lawyers and decided to resolve those within a month of the first parliament session,’ he said.
The meeting of ministers also approved the speech of President lajuddin Ahmed to be delivered at the inaugural session of the ninth parliament on January 25, following a long discussion and after cutting it short with some corrections.
The prime minister told the meeting that all preparations for die first session of the ^jp^lwj^U ate^epmp^^ &he also finalised the paxli^m^ij-tary stahdin^ comrAihees’, saidAzad.