Law enforcers are to write to the home ministry to take necessary steps to ban militant outfit Ansar-Al-Islam, an alleged Bangladesh chapter of al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-Continent.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) detains five alleged members of newly formed militant outfit Al Ansar (Huji), including its chief coordinator, from Dhaka’s Hazaribagh area.

A Singaporean who actively spread radical ideology online and helped radicalise at least two other citizens is detained under the Internal Security Act in Singapore.

For Bangladesh, countering radicalisation is a multi-faceted effort that goes beyond the state. It has an active civil society and media which have come together with the government to address issues that are fuelling terrorism via self-radicalisation within the society.

In just over two years, Bangladesh has lost five dynamic, assertive, free thinkers to gruesome acts of deliberate violence.