Home Minister Asaduzzaman Kamal said that Saturday’s attacks on secular publishers that left one dead were isolated incidents and the law and order situation in the country is good.
“Such isolated incidents occur in other countries as well. Can you name just one place where such things do not happen?” Kamal told reporters at the Secretariat yesterday, adding that such incidents are frequent in countries like Australia, the US and France.
“We will track down the culprits,” he said.
On Saturday, armed assailants carried out two attacks in a matter of hours in Dhaka in which one publisher was killed, another publisher and two bloggers were seriously injured. Both the publishers have published books written by writer-blogger Avijit Roy who was also killed by Islamist militants.
The home minister could not say if they had progressed with investigation, but he claimed that law and order was under control.
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Mizanur Rahman also visited the injured at the DMCH yesterday.
Later reporter asked him what he thought about the minister’s claim that things were okay. In reply, he said he could not comment without knowing the context of the minister’s remarks.
Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu yesterday said nobody, not even himself, was safe from secretive and surprise attacks.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of DB police and also spokesperson of DMP, said: “The attacks are special crimes and special crimes mean targeted killing on a special agenda.
“To handle these crimes, there are special units in every country. In Bangladesh we have a proposal to establish such a special unit titled Counter Terrorism Unit but it is yet to be implemented. In such a situation, regular and DB police are handling these cases.”
