FEARS of attacks by banned extremist organisations on important establishments such as the national assembly building and army and police establishments, places of worship and recreation centres, as a police headquarters release warns, have raised concern. On the receipt of information from an intelligence agency, the police have rightly taken measures to strengthen surveillance and security. A letter, as the police say, that the police headquarters issued on April 24 has asked the Highway Police, the Armed Police Battalion, the Industrial Police, the Anti-Terrorism Unit, the Police Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Investigation Department to strengthen security in all important establishments. The letter has also alerted the Special Branch, the River Police, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, deputy inspectors general of all police ranges, superintendents of police in all districts and officers-in-charge of all police stations to the fears of the threat. The step, as a short-run measure, is timely and welcome. This is so especially in view of such extremist incidents in the past, especially the incidents that happened in Bangladesh’s north-west in the early 2000s and the high-profile attacks in Dhaka in 2016, followed by extremist attacks on an Eid congregational prayer in a central district that year.
A series of incidents then reshaped the security landscape, leading to the establishment of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of the police in 2016 to deal with terrorism and extremism, and organised and transnational crimes. All this also reshaped the judicial approach and led to the securitisation of public spaces as the incidents involved economic and diplomatic consequences. What the police have now done is good as a short-run step. But the government has long-term issues to address to head off extremist threats with a multi-pronged approach involving legislative reform, institutional rebuilding and grass-roots cultural engagement. A proposition of threats of extremist attacks has not surfaced overnight. It took years. The government should, therefore, work relentlessly, also using political and social means to root out such threats. Whilst the government should focus on strategic efforts to enhance counter-terrorism capacity, it should also increase the operational capacity of specialised units such as the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit and the Anti-Terrorism Unit. Political strategies should aim at balancing strict legal enforcement with the promotion of pluralism. The government needs to update relevant laws but ensure that the laws are not politically manipulated as a device for political targeting.
Whilst the government should strengthen democratic institutions and ensure the inclusion of diverse voices, which may lead to grievances that extremists exploit, it should focus on building community resilience and delinking extremist ideologies from social identity. It should integrate cultural activities into the curriculum to foster a conscious generation not susceptible to extremist ideology.
