Only 18 of the 241 cases filed in connection with bomb attacks have been disposed of. Police have arrested 698 people but are to submit charge sheet of 58 cases. Thirty-two people have been sentenced to death and investigators failed to prove charges in one case.

While the patrons, fund providers and foreign links of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) are yet to be identified and put under trial even after a year into the attack, the government keeps on claiming to have successfully destroyed the militant's network.

"No country in the world has achieved as much success as Bangladesh did," State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar said yesterday, even though he admitted the progress in finding out the fund providers was not satisfactory and that they were still working to identify the patrons.

On the anniversary of the countrywide bomb attack, the political parties held discussions, seminars and rallies across the country. But the government's claims or its programmes failed to soothe the disappointed countrymen, especially the families of the victims' as many JMB's activists are still at large.

Blasts on August 17 last year killed two people and injured 200 others while the subsequent series of suicide attacks in Gazipur, Netrakona and Chittagong, killed another 30 people including policemen and lawyers.

"The memory still haunts me, I cannot forget it for a moment," M Akram Hossain, Chittagong metropolitan magistrate who came under JMB bomb attack twice last year, told BBC Bangla Service as he recalled the hurling of bomb at him.

His demand for punishment of the militants was echoed across the country yesterday as cross section of people voiced their demand for rooting out the menace from the country.

Babar, after a yearlong investigation into JMB bomb attacks, yesterday declined to use the phrase 'total root out'. "But there is great success. We're continuing our campaign against them and dedicated teams are working towards it. I think this should be continued even if the government changes," he said.

On the cases where investigators are yet to submit the charge sheet, the state minister said, "Hurry in submitting the charge sheet may result in acquittal of the accused. We're maintaining caution." He however emphasised on executing the judgment.

Asked about other Islamist militant groups active across the country, he said, "There may be other groups but we're continuing with our programmes. You'll have to understand that it's a global problem."

"A militant group emerged but we've succeeded in arresting the group. We're now in a comfortable position," Babar told BBC Bangla Service yesterday.

But people are not tension-free like Babar. "Motivation of the captured militants indicate their fellows, who are still at large, may reorganise and attack at any time. They have to be rooted out completely," a relative of a JMB bomb attack victim in front of Udichi office in Jessore said yesterday.