When it comes to battling the ever-looming threat of militancy, we can never be too careful.
To that end, Bangladesh has made a lot of progress in curbing the instances of militant extremism, with both our law enforcement and intelligence agencies cracking down on and rooting out multiple terror cells before they could do any damage.
And the recent arrest of a member of the banned militant group Hizb ut-Tahrir, who had been on the run for more than a decade, certainly gives us hope that our law enforcement and intelligence are indeed on top of the situation.
But while executive action is certainly a very important component of fighting militancy, it is indeed a war that is fought on multiple fronts. To get to the heart of militancy, we must all be aware of what leads some of us to become radicalized in the first place.
According to research from a few years ago, conducted by our law enforcement, 82% of all people arrested for being involved in terrorist activities were found to have been radicalized through social media. Which means that indoctrination plays a large part in the process of militarizing young men and women to pick up a gun for incredibly misguided causes.
It is not enough to simply combat extremism by incarcerating militants.
As radicalization almost always begins at home, due to the sense of alienation of youth that militants consider to be fertile ground to sow the poison seeds of their ideologies. Which is why we all need to watch out for early signs of a radicalized mind in our youth, sit down with them, listen to their problems, and counsel them to the best of our capability.
While it is important to send out the message that Bangladesh has no place for militant extremism through the powers of the law, it is as important, if not more so, for us to ensure that our youth are counselled properly.
