Act of single man, threat to many
Declaring zero tolerance against militancy, the government has concentrated on rooting it out using law enforcement agencies.
But in the absence of any comprehensive anti-terrorism campaign, the government has not yet sufficiently focused on the phenomenon termed in the West “lone wolf” -- in which an ideologically motivated loner takes upon himself or herself to indulge in an act of terrorism.
A lone wolf is not involved with any organisation; he doesn't have contacts with militants; he has no training from groups like Islamic State or al-Qaeda.
He becomes a militant on his own and decides to attack or kill people all by himself.
Recently in the US, 29-year-old Omar Mateen single-handedly killed 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Another lone wolf, a Tunisian named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, ploughed a truck into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French city of Nice, killing 84 and injuring 200 people.
There are radical websites that inspire people to become lone wolves following the ideologies of al-Qaeda and IS. They upload techniques to make bombs at home using kitchen utensils, and guidelines on how to determine a target and what to do before the attack.
Since lone wolves make and execute plans all alone and contact no one before an operation -- they remain out of the radar of law enforcers.
Bangladesh has also witnessed what a lone wolf can do.
Take the instance of Mesbahuddin, a student of Buet, the country's top engineering university. He embraced militant ideology and hacked dead fellow student Arif Rahman Dwip in 2013.
Why did he commit the murder? Mesbah explained this to the investigation officer, a judicial magistrate and journalists on April 18, 2013.
Son of a retired government official, Mesbah got admitted to Buet's civil engineering department in 2007.
He was a fourth-year student in 2013, residing at Dr MA Rashid Hall. A couple of years before that he came across a mawlana of the city's Gandaria Faridabad Madrasa, Muktamim Mufti Abu Syeed. Mesbah wanted to know from the mawlana what action should be taken against those who undermine Islam.
Mufti Abu Syeed told him that the state should take action against such persons. But if the state does nothing, anyone can take it upon himself if he wants.
“Then I swore to myself that I would take drastic action against the enemies of Islam or the atheists. I am ready to become a martyr,” Mesbah told the magistrate.
“On April 9 [in 2013] I was at Dr MA Rashid Hall. I went to Nazrul Islam Hall, brought out a machete from my bag and struck Dwip on the head. As he was falling down on the floor, I hacked him in his back.
“Then I spent some time on the fourth-floor rooftop and climbed down the pipe to the ground floor. I walked to Kamrangirchar, from where I went to Sadarghat in a rickshaw and started for Shariatpur in a launch. I got down in Chandipur and spent the night at Naria Madrasa. The next day I came to Dhaka and stayed at my hall at night.”
Mesbah said he had learnt that “Dwip had beaten up the imam of the Shaheed Smriti Hall mosque”.
“I thought it was my holy duty to kill Dwip,” he said.
Imam Abdul Alim had given shelter to activists of Qawmi madrasa-based Islamist group Hefajat-e Islami who had come to Dhaka to join Hefajat's grand rally on April 6, 2013. Dwip confronted the imam and handed him over to police.
“When the state does not take action against the enemies of Islam, a devoted Muslim can take drastic action out of his own conviction. That's why I hacked him,” Mesbah said.
Dwip, critically injured on April 9, died at a hospital on July 3.
Mesbah was arrested on April 17 and he confessed his crime to the police the next day, without any hesitation. He did not repent. He also gave confessional statement to a court.
Mesbah said he decided to launch the attack after Dwip “harassed” the imam on April 6. But it seems he had started preparing for the crime quite some time ago.
According to a receipt found with him, Mesbah had purchased the machete from New Market on February 28. He told the court that he had bought the machete to kill the 'enemies of Islam'.
The arrest of Mesbah prompted his brother and brother-in-law to rush to the detective office on April 18.
They told journalists that Mesbah is the ninth among 13 children of former bureaucrat Mafizur Rahman.
Of the seven brothers, four were engineers -- two of them then doing PhD in the US. Two other brothers were medical students.
All his six sisters graduated from various universities of the country.
The family members were aware that Mesbah used to visit Faridabad Madrasa's Mufti Syeed. They had previously tried to persuade him not to meet the mawlana.
At one point, Mesbah promised to his family members that he would not meet Mufti Syeed. But they were totally unaware of what he was nurturing inside.
“Our family has become startled. If Mesbah has committed this crime, someone must have instigated it. This whole incident is a dark spot on our family,” said one of his brothers.
Now it is urgent to understand through research what elements in the society prompts youths like Mesbah to become a militant.
Mesbah apparently did not grow up in a family environment that encourages someone to become a militant. None of his siblings was involved in politics. There was no incident involving his family to provoke him to take revenge on someone.
Mesbah is now in jail. The trial for Dwip murder is still going on.
It is not known whether the authorities have cared to check out the mawlana who awoke the monster in him. It is also not known how many such religious preachers across the country are imparting such perverted instructions to the youths today.
How many lone wolves like Mesbah are there in the society is not known either.
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