One by one Awami League leaders are falling victims to terrorist attacks. Some are being killed in grenade attacks and others like Ahsanullah Master of Gazipur in brushfire by armed hooligans in broad day light in front of hundreds of people. What sort of a democracy are we living in where opposition leaders get killed, their rallies are systematically attacked, their activists constantly brutalised by police and ruling party thugs, and where those who kill opposition leaders and activists are never caught, leave alone punished.

With the murder of SAMS Kibria the country loses one of the most highly talented bureaucrat-turned-politicians who genuinely wanted to serve the country. He wanted to bring about a genuine change in our political system. Compared to what goes on in the name of political rhetoric, Kibria was always mild in his comments and measured in his criticisms of the ruling BNP and its alliance partners. His regular column, that this paper carried for several years before he became the finance minister and the pieces he wrote occasionally after losing power in the last election, though written from a partisan perspective, were always logical, well developed and constructive. He tried to argue his case, as it should be, instead of bulldozing a particular point of view through that has become our political practice.

With all his education, experience, professionalism and rationality, he fell victim to a political culture of violence and irrationality that is dragging our country towards an abyss of intolerance and blindness which cannot lead to anything positive for our beloved country. Kibria's murder must be seen as a serious attack at the very core of the body politic.

Unlike the opposition, we will not be quick to blame the ruling coalition for this political murder. But we feel forced to question the government's sincerity in unearthing the crimes and identifying the criminals in the murders that took place before. This paper chronicled yesterday the large number of incidents of bomb attacks, grenade attacks and violent killings that have gone on since 1999. There is of course the fact that bomb attacks occurred even under the Awami League (AL) regime and nothing was done even then. But that cannot be a justification for the type of inaction and farcical investigation that we have seen so far.

The attack on an AL rally in the capital killing Ivy Rahman and 22 others and nearly killing the leader of the opposition last year was by far the biggest and most brutal on politicians that Bangladesh had seen since the restoration of democracy in 1991.

The world was shocked and leaders from far and wide joined our people in expressing anxiety about our democracy.

The government seemed to share that shock initially. Our people felt somewhat asssured that finally some serious government action will be taken and the culprits will be caught.

To our utter disappointment and shock, we saw a farce of an investigation which practically amounted to a clear signal to the perpetrators that they were safe and could go on with their brutality. And they did. To our sheer disbelief, we saw a story being woven that the AL itself did it to destabilise the government. Repeatedly did we hear the question from the ruling coalition leaders that 'how come none of the nearly a dozen grenades fell to the truck on which Sheikh Hasina stood, and all of them fell on the ground'. This was proof enough that the AL was the culprit!

Some even said that it was staged by Sheikh Hasina herself to garner sympathy for her anti-government movement. The ruling alliance appeared quite satisfied with this 'explanation'. As a consequence, the whole government machinery, instead of digging deep into the crime, was used to further maligning the opposition. The result, inevitably, was a deepening of the political chasm between the AL and the BNP and creation of greater opportunity for those who wanted to continue with the terrorist activities.

This paper and this writer have repeatedly urged the government to see the attack on the opposition as, what it truly is, an attack on democracy. The bombs thrown at the opposition rally today could easily be thrown at the BNP rally tomorrow. The choice of Kibria as the target should not be lost on anybody. His was one of the staunchest voices for secularism and against extremism, terrorism and the increasing use of religion in our politics. His was one of the early warning voices against Taleban penetration into our national politics.

All that he said may not be true but all that he hinted at have definitely come to haunt us today.

Democratic values and norms are under serious attack. It is far beyond the ruling alliance versus opposition issue. Unless concerted and tough actions against the perpetrators of political murders and terrorism are taken immediately, our democratic future may come under serious threat.

Will Khaleda Zia and her party wake up to this eventuality even at this stage when it is already too late.