There is little doubt as to who are the beneficiaries of the government's inability in unearthing or even pursuing the incidents of the bomb attacks and killings of political leaders in the last three years.

Let us take a stock of the recent incidents.

The latest incident is that of the killing of the AL leader and ex-finance minister Mr. Kibria. Between January 27 and now the government has arrested several persons including a local leader of the BNP. Several persons have been charge-sheeted, awaiting prosecution. But the important issues remain outside the domain of public knowledge. For example, there are reports that the principal accused has international links and is involved in money laundering. Does the authority know his actual area of operation? It is also for the government to find out what was the type of bomb that killed Mr. Kibria and whether it bears resemblance to those that were seized in Chittagong last year. It has also not been determined definitively whether the killing is the result of local political feud or something more. Furthermore, how did the principal accused come by the grenades?

The biggest arms haul in the history of the country remains a mystery. The size of the shipment was highly significant. The government has remained satisfied with an inquiry report, and, from the comments following the completion of the Home Secretary's inquiry, it seems that the government had pegged all hopes of unraveling the mystery on the missing operator of the trawler that was used to ship in the huge consignment into a government jetty. Does the government really believe that the lone boatman would solve the mystery of an issue that involved a very complex operation and millions of dollars? The secretary level inquiry, which was completed in haste, gives rise to more questions than it answers. The most significant question is that of the resolve and ability of the government in getting to the bottom of the matter.

Comments by senior government officials following the arms haul in April 2004 confounded the matter initially. The government continues to be oblivious of the fact, or at least that is how it appears to us, that the size of the shipment was big enough to impact very severely on the country's security, let alone of its potential to bring down the government of the day. The money involved in the deal is a stupendous amount, and to our knowledge there is no group in Bangladesh that has that kind of money or has the capability to absorb the type or the quantity of the weapons that were seized. Or is there? So who was behind the deal, who would be the likely beneficiaries and, if it were meant for a third country, what was its final destination? What is the status of the investigation related to the three trucks that apparently went missing? What is the place of origin of these weapons? It is incomprehensible that such a huge and complex operation, involving such a huge amount of money, could have been undertaken without collusion from within the country. These are some of the questions whose answer the nation is eagerly waiting to hear.

The most serious of the incidents was the attack on the AL rally on August 21, 2004. We can hardly conjure in our mind its likely political and security ramifications had the other senior leaders of the party been killed. It is assumed that the findings of the commission of enquiry has revealed nothing since we have not noticed any tangible follow-up action on the part of the government in the matter. The commission had many inherent shortcomings, primary of which was lack of appropriate technical and investigative expertise. After all, a judge is not a sleuth. He had to depend on the assumptions or analysis of certain "experts" whose knowledge on the matter was also circumscribed by many inherent shortcomings.

In the absence of public explanation, how can one prevent speculation that our territory is being used for transit of illegal weapons and drugs. However, if that be the case, we are not aware of any effort on the part of the government to make this trade more difficult, if not block it totally. The border forces remain thin on the ground and we are not aware of any definite actions that have been taken to interdict the likely routes that are being used for the illegal trafficking. Our coastline needs to be more effectively patrolled by making the Coast Guard more mobile and flexible.

None of investigations into the bomb attacks, particularly against the VIPs, has made headway. There seems to be a sense of inertia in the government in pursuing the cases.

The US State Department "Country Reports on Terrorism" for 2004 suggests the presence in Bangladesh of Islamic extremist with international links, something that had been talked about for many months in our media. And yet the government has seen it fit to explain away the report as nothing more than an attempt to vilify the country. The foreign minister's remonstration would have been credible had it been backed by detailed investigation of the substance of the reports. We have no information that investigations into reports related to existence of radicals on our soil have been conducted at all.

The government, one feels, must do more in these matters otherwise its sincerity in resolving the matter may be called into question. And when the government is seen to lack sincerity in following up cases that have great long-term security implications for the state, when it remains constantly in a denial mode and considers comments, national and international, as attempts to harm its image, all sorts of speculation are engendered.

There are so many leads that the government could have taken. And since one is not aware of any follow-up action in the matter, a safe bet is that either the government has all the answers to the questions which it prefers to keep out of public purview, or it has not thought it necessary to follow the leads.

One feels that the findings must be made public. It is the people's right to know since it is their security and safety that are at stake.

And, if the government has not thought it necessary to follow the leads, the obvious question is, why not?

The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.