Apparently unhappy with the performance of law enforcers, particularly of police, in tackling terrorism and militancy, ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance leaders yesterday observed that law enforcers need to be more skilled and efficient in this regard.
The alliance leaders came up with the observations in the wake of recent incidents of killings and terrorist attacks, including that in a Gulshan café and near the Sholakia Eidgah premises in Kishoreganj.
Although terrorism and militancy have now turned to be a global crisis, it appears to have taken a turn for the worse also in Bangladesh in recent days, they said and suggested the government to make the law enforcing agencies stronger by equipping them with modern technologies.
The country witnessed the worst and the deadliest terror attack in its history on the night of July 1 when 29 people, including 18 foreigners and two police officers, were killed by militants at a café in the capital’s diplomatic enclave Gulshan. The deceased also include six terrorists who were reportedly killed in a joint forcers’ led combing operation to bring an end to the around 12-hour siege to the Spanish restaurant.
 Just after seven days later of the Gulshan attack, the militants carried out similar attack on the Eid prayers at the Solakia Eid Ground that left four people, including two policemen, a woman and a suspected assailant, dead.
Besides, over 40 people have been killed and 134 injured over the past year in attacks on ethnic minorities, free thinkers, bloggers or those who hold dissenting opinions, according to media reports.
Talking to The Independent, Workers’ Party of Bangladesh president and civil aviation minister Rashed Khan Menon said people have doubts about the recent performance of members of law enforcing agencies especially the members of detective branch in arresting the masterminds of the terrorist attacks.
“Though our law enforcers are working hard to maintain law and order situation under control but in most of the cases they are being somehow failed. I will tell that our law enforcers should have been more active,” he said.
AL presidium member and health minister Mohammad Nasim told The Independent on Friday said that the law enforcement agencies would be tougher in handling such killings.
Nasim, also the coordinator of the 14-Party Alliance, said a “certain quarter” was engaged in carrying out such killings to destabilise the Sheikh Hasina government. “Our police force will deal such incidents with an iron hand,” he asserted.
Shirin Akhter, general secretary of a faction of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD-Inu), told this correspondent that it was quite natural that people doubted the police administration, as it has failed to arrest the murderers before taking place any incident.
“Our law enforcing agencies’ members should have been more active as style and pattern of incidents of attacks and killings has been changed in the passage of time. We have already suggested our alliance partner Awami League to equip our law enforcers with modern technology,” she said.