"If another judge is injured or killed, we'll cripple the judiciary, one of the three main organs of the state," BJSA Secretary General Rezaul Karim Khan said at a meeting of the judges and magistrates with Communications Minister Nazmul Huda.

The first attack was made on courts three months ago but the government did not take any safety measures, said Khan, also the Dhaka divisional special judge.

"Had the government taken effective measures, the two judges would not have to die," he said, referring to the killing of two senior assistant judges in a suicide bomb attack by Islamist militants in Jhalakathi on November 14.

"It seems the country has no government," he observed.

The communications minister, who attended the meeting as the in-charge of Dhaka district, said: "The government is not taking the issue of bomb attacks lightly, all the perpetrators will be dealt with a strong hand...I'll take the matter to the prime minister."

The minister also visited the Dhaka courts yesterday afternoon in the wake of strong protest by the judges and lawyers against the killing of two judges.

The lawyers will boycott all courts across the country today to protest the killing.

Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, BJSA president and district and sessions judge of Dhaka, will meet the prime minister today to seek security of all judges.

The speakers at the meeting strongly condemned the government's failure to ensure security of the judges and demanded deployment of permanent police force at the Dhaka courts.

"What the government should do now is to sit with the opposition parties and resolve the problem unitedly," the BJSA secretary general said, adding that bomb attack is a political issue and the government should face it politically.

"Terror haunts me when I sit at court after the repeated bomb attacks. We cannot work in this situation," Jalal Ahmed, chief metropolitan magistrate, Dhaka, said.

He pointed out that the government has not allocated quarters for all his colleagues who have to stay in rented houses at different places of the city.

The judges of the Special Courts for Prevention of Women and Children Repression, who are equivalent to district judges, have no vehicles and are exposed to attack, he said.

The meeting held at the judges' conference room at the Dhaka Judge Court was addressed, among others, by Metropolitan Sessions Judge Momin Ullah, District PP Mohsin Miah and Dhaka Bar Association General Secretary Khorshed Alam.

Dhaka Deputy Commissioner Abdul Bari also attended the meeting.

Two senior assistant judges -- Sohel Ahmed and Jagannath Pandey -- of Jhalakathi were killed and a court employee and two pedestrians were injured in a bomb attack by a member of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh suicide squad on Monday.

LAWYERS BOYCOTT
As part of their protest against the killing of two judges, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) will boycott the Supreme Court and all other courts across the country today. The lawyers will wear black badges, hoist black flags and stage demonstrations.

The SCBA leaders yesterday urged all lawyers, irrespective of opinion and party affiliation, to make the programme a success.

The SCBA leaders at a press conference said the chief justice is the guardian of the constitution, the judges and the lawyers. So the lawyers and the judges expect that he would play a courageous role to uphold the rule of law, the constitution and the judicial system against the backdrop of a 'deteriorating and anarchistic situation.'

SCBA President advocate Mahbubey Alam and Secretary advocate M Enayetur Rahim in a written statement said the repeated attacks indicate that a certain quarter within the government has strong link with the bombers and the extremists.

They said the lawyers hoped that the government would take effective steps to root out the patrons of the bombers after the August 17 serial bomb blasts, the attacks on courts in Chittagong, Chandpur and Laxmipur on October 3 and the attack on a judge in Sylhet.

But the government has absolutely failed to fulfil the expectation, they alleged.

The SCBA leaders also alleged that the terrorists were carrying out the deadly bomb attacks without any hindrance since the government has made the law enforcement agencies inactive by using them to serve their political purposes.

They urged the chief justice to take necessary steps without waiting for the government measures to ensure the security of the judges, the lawyers and the litigants.

Former SCBA presidents Abdul Baset Majumder and barrister Shafique Ahmed, advocate Yusuf Hossain Humayun, advocate Rahmat Ali MP, Khondaker Mahbub Hossain, Sirajul Haque, Shah Zahirul Alam, MA Mannan, Bashir Ahmed, Sheikh Akhterul Islam, Mainul Islam Chowdhury and Shahidul Islam were present at the press conference.