Author: Editorial
Publication: The Daily Star
Date: December 29, 2005
URL: http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/12/29/d51229020125.htm
Time has come for government to clean house
The facts could not be any clearer. Elements
within the government have for a long time been sponsoring and sheltering
the outlawed JMB and JMJB militants. This original revelation was reported
in the media long ago and has since been corroborated time and again through
confessional statements made during the interrogations of suspected militants.
The evidence suggesting such links is now
so great and disquieting that it can no longer be plausibly denied, and the
revelations of recently arrested JMB leader Lutfar Rahman are merely the latest
in what now amounts to a mountain of substantiation
What is becoming clear is that, when it comes
to the militants, the government has been pursuing a policy that can at best
be described as extremely short-sighted, and at worst, utterly reckless and
indefensible.
The evidence is incontrovertible that in response
to banditry of so-called leftist groups in the north-west of Bangladesh, certain
elements within the government took a decision to sponsor the rise of the
militant religious groups to take up arms against those outlaws. This is how
the religious militancy arose and how it was able to spread far and wide with
relatively little check from the authorities.
Now that government's ill-fated policy of
sponsoring vigilante justice has backfired disastrously and been exposed for
all to see, the time has come for the government to first acknowledge its
grievous error and then to correct it.
The first thing that the government needs
to do is to follow up on the information that has been provided implicating
members of the administration. If there is credible evidence suggesting someone
in the government has a connection to the militants, he or she needs to be
brought to justice, not shielded.
The government needs to publicly disassociate
itself from those within its ranks who are soft on the militants. It should
make clear that there is no place for such people in the administration. This
will send the message to the militants that their virtual impunity is a thing
of the past. The government must renounce and abandon the policy of tolerating
the sponsorship and shelter of the militants, and take full action against
those within its ranks who do so.
