Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday told parliament that people arrested at different times for terrorist activities have their “roots in BNP-Jamaat and their allies”.
“If we go to the roots of those arrested at different times, if we look into their whole identities, we’ll see that they are all BNP and Jamaat men and their allies who opposed our independence and Liberation War,” she said.
Accusing them of carrying out terrorist activities in the country, the PM said: “Records of the arrestees’ student or young life politics clearly show that they are BNP-Jamaat men.”
Hasina called upon the lawmakers, common people and the media to identify those involved in militancy, terrorist activities and cyber crimes and help the government nab them.
She urged the judges and lawyers not to work in favour of granting bails to “criminals who are caught by police after making huge efforts and spending hundreds of crores of taka.”
The judges should consider the seriousness of crimes committed by an accused while granting bail to him so that nobody can get involved in such crimes again after coming out of jail on bail, she observed.
The government, she said, has nothing to do with it if judges “grant bail to criminals”.
The premier pledged that her government will take all necessary measures to ensure safety of people’s lives.
In a scripted reply to lawmakers’ queries, Hasina described various steps taken by her government to fight subversive and criminal activities.
About the progress in the murder cases of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella and Japanese national Kunio Hoshi, she informed the House that the police and intelligence agencies were conducting operations to nab the killers and masterminds behind the incidents.
VOICE, MESSAGING SERVICES
Independent MP Haji Selim enquired the premier of her government’s plan to stop misuse of WhatsApp and Viber by some people.
Hasina in replay said her government has a plan to block different voice and messaging services for sometime to trace and nab terrorists.
Some people got involved in criminal activities taking the advantage of social media technology, she noted.
“It has now become necessary to stop operation of such [voice and messaging] services to find out and arrest those who are involved in terrorist activities.”
The government in January had blocked some services, including WhatsApp, My People, Line, Viber and Tango, for several weeks following intelligence that criminals and militants interact with each other using these applications which couldn’t be monitored widely by the intelligence agencies.
The agencies can trace a caller when a regular call is made from a mobile phone, but they can’t do so when the caller uses Viber or Tango, sources at Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission told The Daily Star.
Source: The Daily Star
