Published on 12:00 AM, August 11, 2015

Editorial

Serial killing of bloggers

Preempt such occurrences

It is disquieting to note that the law enforcing agencies have not yet been able to make any tangible progress in connection with the murder of the four bloggers who were killed in the last seven months. On March 30, the two murderers of blogger Oyasiqur Rahman Babu were caught in the act by some locals who would then hand the killers over to the police. Four months on, law enforcers apparently have not yet been able to go forward in the case. This is highlighted even further when we see that, of late, the law enforcers have promptly preempted numerous terrorist attacks, for which we have lauded them. The Rapid Action Battalion has also arrested several individuals for threatening emails or phone calls to a number of dignitaries. All of these bring to sharper relief the fact that they do not seem equally effective in the case of attacks on bloggers in spite of the victims having tried to report the threats to the law enforcers. 

We find it befuddling as to why an issue as important as the serial killing of the bloggers, which reflects on the country's image, should not be taken as seriously as it should have been. Of course the police would claim otherwise, the lack of result in most of the investigations, however, proves to the contrary. There is no doubt that the police do need to put a brake on the culture of impunity, which might embolden different home grown terror outfits. The law enforcers should infiltrate the terrorist sleeper cells, if there is any. They should also put more emphasis on human intelligence.