DCs asked to activate anti-terror committees

The deputy commissioners from across the country have been asked to activate anti-terrorism committees involving people from all walks of life, irrespective of their political identities, to fight the menace at the grassroots level more effectively.
‘All elected representatives from local bodies including union parishads, upazila parishads, municipalities and city corporations are to be included in the local-level anti-terrorism committees,’ public administration minister Syed Ashraful Islam told reporters on Thursday after a business session during the deputy commissioners’ annual conference at the secretariat.
He said the anti-terrorism committees under the local administrations across the country will not be made ‘political’.
Asked whether those elected recently from the banners of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami would be in cluded in those committees, Ashraf, also Awami League general secretary, said, ‘Of course. They will of course be included in these committees.’
He said the ruling AL had already taken a move from the party to form similar committees at the local level after the recent terror attacks on a restaurant at Gulshan’s diplomatic zone and Sholakia.
‘The DCs have already been alerted against terrorism and extremist activities as they lead the local administrations and have an important role in creating public awareness,’ the minister said.
He said it was easier to contain militancy locally with the help of local representatives and the local administrations.
About the BNP’s call for a national unity to fight extremism, Ashraf said he was expecting an announcement from the party forum in a day or two.
The government in 2013 ordered formation of the anti-terror committees in the wake of countrywide violence and arson attacks during the BNP-led opposition’s nationwide non-stop blockade.
Talking to New Age, several DCs said that the anti-terrorist committees formed by the government in 2013 could not function as ruling party leaders involved in them stayed away.
On the eve of the conference, cabinet secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam admitted that the anti-terrorist committees, comprising of social and political leaders, were inactive until now.
He said that the divisional commissioners and the DCs had been instructed to reactivate the divisional and the district level core committees, and the anti-terrorism committees, also to root out extremist activities.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday called for an investigation to find out if there was any link of BNP with militants, particularly with those who were killed in the city’s Kalyanpur raid.
‘Is there any secret link with them (militants)? We have to investigate if they (BNP) are involved with any conspiracy,’ the PM said in her closing speech for the budget session in parliament.
Syed Ashraf said the district administrators were asked to ensure dynamism in the field-level government activities.
He assured the deputy commissioners that measures would be taken to install close-circuit cameras at all important government establishments in various districts, said a senior official at the Cabinet Division, who attended the meeting.
The DCs had business sessions with the civil aviation and tourism ministry and the textiles and jute ministry on the third day of the conference.
The DCs’ conference this year takes place in the backdrop of the two grisly attacks by suspected militant groups in a week.
The attack on a Gulshan restaurant killed 22 people including 17 foreigners and two police officers on July 1. Six suspected gunmen were killed in an army-led operation on the following day.
Just a week after the grisly attack at the Gulshan restaurant, the militant attack near the country’s biggest Eid congregation at Sholakia in Kishoreganj killed four people, including two cops, on July 7.
The four-day annual conference of deputy commissioners, which began in the capital on Tuesday, concludes today.
The cabinet secretary chairs the business sessions with various ministries.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net