Faruque Ahmed
The killing of Italian national Cesare Tavella may have put the last nail to postpone the visit of the Australian Cricket team to Bangladesh quite unexpectedly but surely as it came at the peak hour when a security team of Cricket Australia was in the city to review the security threats and the government measures to handle the situation.
Bangladesh is not so far known as a terrorist infected land although lawlessness is gripping the nation taking advantage of the government’s poor governance and use of the law enforcers primarily in dealing with the opposition party leaders and workers instead of reining the underworld goons and criminal outfits.
Bangladesh is suffering from political uncertainty and criminal activities by goons and muggers not from terrorist threats coming from dreaded outfits groups. But the government is very often using the terrorist card in public statements accusing terrorists and fundamentalist groups in tandem with global fight against terrorism.
The ruling Awami League has developed its politics on an antiterrorist and anti-fundamentalist platform to win the US and European support in its domestic politics to beat the opposition.
So the government leaders were playing the card for quite long but it proved counter-productive this time outwardly causing the Australian Cricket to think twice before sending the team last week to Bangladesh. Major opposition BNP has already blamed the government for excessive exploitation of terrorism issue in domestic politics to make a boomerang out of it this time to harm its own cause.
But the government leaders lost no time to blame BNP-Jamaat for the killing of the Italian national apparently to sabotage the visit of Australian Cricket team to Bangladesh. Even Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came out severely critical to the statement of a senior BNP leader in this respect and told the media in New York last week that she would deal with the persons making such statement on her return home.
News report meanwhile said the government intelligence agencies presented reports to Home Ministry in Dhaka prior to the Australian Cricket team’s visit with high security concerns for local and Australian cricket teams.
The travel advisory of an Australian government agency alerted Australian nationals in Bangladesh saying that they have report of terrorist attacks on foreign interest here this week. It asked the Australian nationals to limit their movement in public places and to keep in safety.
It led the Australian Cricket team to delay the flight to clear the security concern in Bangladesh and the killing of the Italian national in Dhaka right at this time made the visit further uncertain.
News report said Cricket Australia has already sent the team to their respective clubs to join training for national tournaments apparently putting the signal that their team is not coming to Bangladesh. Meanwhile countries like USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland and South Korea have also issued travel alert for their nationals apparently making Bangladesh a place where terrorist attacks on foreigners may take place any time. But many wonder why the Italian national was killed right at this moment and whether it has any link with cricket world.
It is true that cricket teams are not visiting Pakistan since 2009 when terrorist had attacked Sri Lankan team leaving at least six civilians dead. After that any test match and one-day series involving Pakistani cricket team is taking place in Sarjah in the UAE.
Bangladesh women cricket team is the first foreign team breaking the long silence as it is visiting Pakistan at the moment. Bangladesh Cricket Board is sympathetic to Pakistan because of the fact that Bangladesh was elected Vice President of International Cricket Board with Pakistan’s support and later became Chairman of the International Cricket Board. Dhaka then planned to send a cricket team to Pakistan to repay the debt but had to suspend it again at a time when Bangladesh’s political relations with Pakistan turned very sour.
Even Prime Minister Hasina is in a fix as to why Australia should cancel the trip citing security reason. He told the media in New York last week that Pakistan and India played in Bangladesh in the past. Even matches of Cricket World Cup were hosted by Bangladesh in recent past and there was no security threat. Only Australia can clarify why they decided not to visit Bangladesh this time, she said.
In fact, Bangladesh hosted a number of sports events over the previous years with complete security and no untoward incident occurred then. She said law enforcement agencies and all other organisations concerned with the game have enough competence to ensure players’ security and yet the visit was cancelled. Not only the Prime Minister, every citizen has been caught by surprise because of the fact that there is no serious terrorist threat or big outfit groups in the country which can mount attacks on cricketers.
Bangladesh is a moderate Muslim country and people are highly tolerant here and yet we have to bear the blame of terrorism without any big terrorist attack in the country so far.
Many fear that the visit of Australian cricket team to Bangladesh is not positively taken by some others in the cricket world and acted from behind the scene to sabotage the visit of Australian Cricket team here raising the security issue. Italian national Cesare Tavella may be a last moment victim when the Cricket Australia team was about to give a positive note for the visit of the Australian team to Bangladesh.
Source: Weekly Holiday
