Kantaji Temple blasts

The bombings of Shia mosques should have alerted law enforcement bodies to engage countrywide in tasks of protecting sites of worship of minorities. Festivals in and around such religious places are not innumerable but limited in number. So, the guarding of these for a period of time would not put so much stress on the capacities of the law enforcers

Although a daily paper very recently reported that bomb blasts at Kantaji Temple on Saturday that hurt 16 (including some seriously) was spun out of business rivalry, this report is rather a unique one and the majority of media reports and analyses of the event have so far found a common thread between this incident and the spate of terror incidents in recent months that have been tormenting the country. Typically, the temple blasts were against a prominent place of worship by the biggest religious minority in Bangladesh, the Hindus. The killing of a   few foreigners who were non Muslims and attacks on mosques of the Shia sect that preceded the temple blasts, all had common features of being very probably initiated by ultra Islamists characterised by their absolute intolerance and insensitivity to all decent values.
Looking back, one may say that such insidious instincts against minorities were starkly manifest in the attitude of the marauding Pakistan occupation forces in 1971 when as a clever ploy to drive a wedge between the dominant Muslim population here and the minorities, they directed their energies mainly to start and sustain pogroms against the minority Hindus that led to their great number fleeing to India in panic and taking shelter there. The Pakistanis thought that this strategy would help them to show that the political troubles in the then East Pakistan were mainly the creation of the Hindus and that their policies would find appreciation among the dominant Bengali Muslim population.
Thus, it may be assumed that today’s terrorists of the Islamist kind in Bangladesh have adopted a similar strategy to concentrate their heinous attacks on non Muslims or religious minorities with the ulterior motive that such actions would help them to get close to the majority Muslim people  in this country who would be gradually inclined  to play their fiddle. But it appears that the terror mongers have learnt nothing from 1971 and afterwards. Bangladeshis in their greatest number are not extremists or fundamentalists and they are most unlikely to fall prey to the stratagems of the fanatics by taking up the bait of communalism.
However, for the time being,   law enforcement bodies must put a pace to their vigilance in a really proactive manner to be able to head off recurrence of incidents like the latest temple blasts. The bombings of Shia mosques should have alerted them to engage countrywide in tasks of protecting sites of worship of minorities. Festivals in and around such religious places are not innumerable but limited in number. So, the guarding of these for a period of time would not put so much stress on the capacities of the law enforcers.

Kantaji Temple blasts

The bombings of Shia mosques should have alerted law enforcement bodies to engage countrywide in tasks of protecting sites of worship of minorities. Festivals in and around such religious places are not innumerable but limited in number. So, the guarding of these for a period of time would not put so much stress on the capacities of the law enforcers

Although a daily paper very recently reported that bomb blasts at Kantaji Temple on Saturday that hurt 16 (including some seriously) was spun out of business rivalry, this report is rather a unique one and the majority of media reports and analyses of the event have so far found a common thread between this incident and the spate of terror incidents in recent months that have been tormenting the country. Typically, the temple blasts were against a prominent place of worship by the biggest religious minority in Bangladesh, the Hindus. The killing of a few foreigners who were non Muslims and attacks on mosques of the Shia sect that preceded the temple blasts, all had common features of being very probably initiated by ultra Islamists characterised by their absolute intolerance and insensitivity to all decent values. Looking back, one may say that such insidious instincts against minorities were starkly manifest in the attitude of the marauding Pakistan occupation forces in 1971 when as a clever ploy to drive a wedge between the dominant Muslim population here and the minorities, they directed their energies mainly to start and sustain pogroms against the minority Hindus that led to their great number fleeing to India in panic and taking shelter there. The Pakistanis thought that this strategy would help them to show that the political troubles in the then East Pakistan were mainly the creation of the Hindus and that their policies would find appreciation among the dominant Bengali Muslim population. Thus, it may be assumed that todays terrorists of the Islamist kind in Bangladesh have adopted a similar strategy to concentrate their heinous attacks on non Muslims or religious minorities with the ulterior motive that such actions would help them to get close to the majority Muslim people in this country who would be gradually inclined to play their fiddle. But it appears that the terror mongers have learnt nothing from 1971 and afterwards. Bangladeshis in their greatest number are not extremists or fundamentalists and they are most unlikely to fall prey to the stratagems of the fanatics by taking up the bait of communalism. However, for the time being, law enforcement bodies must put a pace to their vigilance in a really proactive manner to be able to head off recurrence of incidents like the latest temple blasts. The bombings of Shia mosques should have alerted them to engage countrywide in tasks of protecting sites of worship of minorities. Festivals in and around such religious places are not innumerable but limited in number. So, the guarding of these for a period of time would not put so much stress on the capacities of the law enforcers.