August 21: An alternate view

. PHOTO: STAR

The motive of the attack seems to have been to destabilise the government. Apparently, there could be only two forces that could be responsible for this attack i.e. either external forces or internal forces. The external forces can perhaps be ruled out on the argument that primary interest of any external forces in Bangladesh is only business interest. As long as they have control over Bangladeshi market, irrespective of which party is in power, they would never like to destabilise a government. Additionally, Bangladesh with all her chronic problems of law and order, corruption, natural calamities, etc is not a very attractive nation for intervention by any external powers unless, of course, Bangladesh poses a major threat to them which is most unlikely.

But there are ample reasons for some internal forces to give a jolt to the government once in a while by resorting to incidents like this one. The present government, for example, has taken up quite a few initiatives which might have hurt some internal forces i.e. some vested interest groups. Some of these initiatives are speedy trial courts, reorganisation of police force (RAB, Cobra, Panther, etc), independent anti-corruption commission, recovery programme for encroached land, recovery programme for defaulted loans etc. These initiatives have definitely hurt some quarters or are likely to hurt them in future. So, what are we to surmise?