Diplomats call for higher security [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Diplomats call for higher security

Local October 07, 2015

Chiefs of the foreign missions in Bangladesh asked the government for additional security on Tuesday following the recent killings of an Italian and Japanese national in the country.
‘We talked about additional security measures everywhere,’ British high commissioner in Dhaka Robert Gibson told reporters after a government briefing for diplomats.
The briefing was held by the foreign and home ministries for resident diplomatic missions in Dhaka on Tuesday.
Foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali assured them of necessary security measures and said ‘not only diplomats, we are arranging security for all foreigners in the country including those working in remote areas in development programmes,’ he said.
The mission chiefs further asked the government for proper investigation to find the culprits involved in the killings.
The ambassadors requested ‘proper investigation to find out the culprits’, said Gibson, who is also the Dean of Diplomatic Corps.
Italian national Ceasare Tavella was shot to death in Dhaka’s diplomatic enclave on September 28 while Hoshi Kunio, a Japanese national, was killed on September 30 at his farmland in Rangpur.
Representatives of some 45 foreign missions and international agencies, including the UNDP, were invited to the briefing held at the state guest house Padma in the capital. Gibson, Japanese ambassador Masato Watanabe, US ambassador Marcia Bernicat, among others, spoke at the briefing.
Watanabe also requested for quick investigation to nab the criminals involved in the killings, according to a diplomat present at the briefing.
Watanabe, however, avoided journalists despite repeated attempts after the briefing.
The diplomats assured the government of necessary cooperation in combating terrorist acts, including such crimes targeting foreign nationals, and any possible linkage with foreign terrorist elements, the foreign ministry said in a press release.
Foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali suggested the diplomats, ‘should not feel excessively threatened by these incidents. Any reaction out of proportion would only help the perpetrators meet their ends’.
He said, ‘it is only a matter of time before our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are in a position to reveal the real motives and apprehend the miscreants behind the crimes.’
Without mentioning archrival Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the foreign minister said, ‘our political opponents…misleadingly projected us as projecting Bangladesh as a “hotbed of militant activities”.’
The same quarters that resorted to indiscriminate acts of violence and terror against innocent civilians in the last two years may have opted for different targets this time.
In their desperate bid to prevent the execution of the full verdict recently released by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, the convicted individuals and their sympathizers ‘can perhaps go to any extent to destabilise the situation’.
About the militant group Islamic State claiming credit, Ali said the government was examining the claims. ‘Any premature announcement in this regard will not be conducive to proper investigation’.
On a question the foreign minister told reporters, ‘the US ambassador reiterated the issue today and we said we do not have any credible proof [about the presence of the IS]’.
On a question about the claim of the US ambassador Marcia Bernicat that the government was informed about security threats to foreigners, the foreign minister admitted to her statement. ‘They did. But the attacks were not made at the places we were informed of. They [criminals] say one thing and do another. They operate in this way,’ he said.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan shared with the diplomats the status of investigations into the two murder cases and reaffirmed the government’s resolve to find out the real motives and bring the perpetrators to justice. He particularly mentioned beefed up security in and around the diplomatic zone.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md. Shahriar Alam, secretaries to the foreign and home ministries, Inspector General of Police, Director General of Rapid Action Battalion and Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, were present at the briefing and interacted with the envoys.