An afterthought of grenade attack in Habiganj: Who provides shelter for the perpetrators? Shabbir Ahmed A gruesome grenade attack has taken the life of a great bureaucrat-turn politician named Mr. S. A. M. S. Kibria in Bangladesh. As a former diplomat, he earned great reputation both inside and outside Bangladesh. He even served as the head of an agency under United Nations. For quite sometime, he has been writing in-depth analytical essays in both English and Bengali. Like many others, I used to enjoy reading his essays on sociopolitical and economic issues of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, a personality like him had to die in the hands of the terrorists. The conscious people of Bangladesh have been deeply saddened and shocked for his sudden untimely death in a grenade attack. Just a few months ago, there was a grenade attack on the Awami League leaders in Dhaka midtown. In that attack more than twenty leaders and workers died. More than two hundred Awami League leaders and workers were injured. The government failed to identify the perpetrators of that gruesome killing. Many people have been writing about all these attacks against Awami League, especially, now after the death of Mr. Kibria. Some has expressed that it is the continuation of the attack that took place on 8/21last year. In my opinion, the killing of high-profile Awami League leaders started in earnest in 1975 with the killing of Bongobonddhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his close associates. Since then, the characters of the killers and the beneficiaries have not changed at all. The motive and interest of the killers and the beneficiaries and their patrons have remained the same as it was in 1975. The killers of 1975 were able to capture the state power for a few months before their patrons and beneficiaries took control of Bangladesh under the leadership of military dictator Gen. Ziaur Rahman. Since then, Bangladesh is being ruled most of the time by the same group of people consisting of the beneficiaries and patrons of the killers of 1975. Now, the patrons and beneficiaries along with Jamaat-i-Islamists are ruling Bangladesh. It is not difficult to understand that the present regime of the beneficiaries and the patrons will never try to get into the causes of the deaths of so many leaders and workers of Awami League including the recent killing of Mr. Kibria. We should look into the alleged patronization of the killers by the present administration of the fundamentalist alliance government of Jamaat-i-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The present government released one of the accused of the jail killing case after they came into power in 2001. They even appointed him as a director in the foreign ministry. Gen Ziaur Rahman gave jobs to the killers of Bongobondhu in foreign ministry. The present Prime Minister Khaleda Zia brought one of the killers of Bongobondhu and his associates into the parliament as the opposition party leader after rigging election in February 1996. The recent verdict on jail killing was a staged fiasco. The government changed the judge and the government prosecutors to get verdicts in favor of the accused. One of the accused is a top ranking leader of the ruling alliance. You figure it out whether justice is possible under the present circumstance. On August 21, 2004, the government staged a number of arranged fiascos. First, they wanted to express sympathy and later they tried their best to blame victim Awami League for the killing of their top ranking leaders and workers. The lawmakers of the fundamentalist alliance even laughed and questioned why more Awami League leaders including Sheikh Hasina did not die after the heinous grenade attack on that August day. They are quite adept in the staging of this type of drama. In fact, the founder of BNP, the dictator Gen. Ziaur Rahman knew this art of deception and tricks rather well. On jail killing case, a judicial inquiry was formed probably (if I recall correctly) under Justice K. M. Sobhan. However, internally, the dictator General did not allow him to do the necessary functions on the investigation. In addition, Gen Zia was patronizing simultaneously the killers by giving them lucrative jobs in Foreign Service. Later, the dictator General gave indemnity to the killers through his rubber stamp parliament. Receiving impunity through political patronage was legitimized in Bangladesh way back in 1976-77. The founding father of BNP should have received an award for his ingenuity posthumously. Now, we observe the similar tricks played by the followers of the dictator Gen. Ziaur Rahman. They have been expressing their sympathy first and later they have been doing everything possible to cover up the killers. Even they used the government investigators to destroy the traces of evidences in the crime scene. They have been employing these deceptive techniques for a long time. Unfortunately, they got away with all these conspiracies quite effectively. In the recent times, we are observing the concerns of even the foreign diplomats and the foreign media due to the increased role of deception and tricks employed by the present fundamentalist alliance government. After the killing of Mr. S. A. M. S. Kibria, the foreign diplomats, especially, the U. S. and European Union diplomats have expressed their suspicion about the sincerity of the government in bringing the killers into book. It can be concluded that the deceptive techniques of the present fundamentalist partners has been exposed to all quarters. The shelf life of this deceptive trick has all but expired in this day of Internet. Finally, I must concur with other writers that this killing of Mr. Kibria is a great loss for Bangladesh. Mr. Kibria showed how an international figure like him could do writings and politics to represent the people of his ancestral village in Hobigonj. I do not believe that the present conspiratorial government of the fundamentalist alliance will try the killers and save people like Mr. Kibria. For this, a resistance should be built against the present fascist regime of the fundamentalist alliance of Jamaat-I-Islami, Islami Oyko Jot, and their protector, the BNP. Or else, the nation will plunge into anarchy from where there is no turning point. The vicious development in Bangladesh has implications for rest of the South Asian nations and for that matter for the entire world. Therefore, donor nations including America should apply pressure on the present government to catch the culprits who do not live in vacuum in a densely populated country. The other possibility could be resignation en masse at this time by Khaleda Zia and her trusted lieutenants. Lest Mrs. Zia forgot, the wellbeing of 145 million people is at stake here. --------------------------------- Dr. Shabbir Ahmed, a research engineer and cyber commentator, writes from Jacksonville, Florida, USA    ©  Mukto-Mona