Over the last decade, there had been scores of bomb blasts in Bangladesh, which have killed about 150 people. The preferred targets for such bombings have been movie theatres, entertainment parks and shows such as Jatras and village fairs, etc.

There has also been a new trend of bombing the opposition political rallies and meetings in recent times, notably the August 21, 2004 bombing of Awami League (AL) rally in Dhaka which killed 22 people including Ivy Rahman and another AL rally bombing in Hobiganj on January 27 that killed 5 people including the former finance minister SAMS Kibria.

There has also been bombing of Sufi shrines, including one in Sylhet in which the UK High Commissioner to Bangladesh was hurt. On top of that there have been threats to many entertainment shows and festivals, and without heightened security arrangement, no such shows and festivals could be held anywhere in Bangladesh for some time.

Finally, there have been numerous death threats to secular thinkers and writers including targeted assassination attempts as happened to, poet Shamsur Rahman and Humayun Azad.

These sorts of bombing across the country over the last decade clearly display a pattern typical of an orchestrated Islamic terror campaign, since the targets for these bombings are places and events considered sinful by the Islamic fundamentalists. And yet, the government has been in persistent denial of the presence of any such terrorist groups in the country whilst innocent people continue to be killed on a regular basis in such bombings.

Most strikingly, the international community, including the United States and United Kingdom, fail to see any such terrorist activities in Bangladesh and label this country a "model moderate Muslim state."

On August 17, a staggering 450 bombs exploded synchronisedly across the country in an attack that shook the nation. Although the low-intensity bombs killed two and injured over 100, but such a wave of bombing is unprecedented in the history of terror campaigns by the Islamic zealots anywhere in the world.

Does not this extraordinary bombing clearly say that the country not only harbours terror groups, but also that these groups are very widespread, well-organised, sophisticated, and capable of causing mayhem any time? Is the government still going to stand its traditional ground and claim that there are no terror groups in Bangladesh? Not impossible, given the lack of responsibility our government has displayed towards the welfare of the nation and the citizens.

But not this time! State Minister incharge of Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar conceded: "These are planned incidents. We had intelligence report(s) about such plan but that expired a few days back."

When there was intelligence report on plans of terror attacks of such massive scale, why then the government has been in consistent denial of the presence of any terror groups in the country? This time, the government clearly does not have any way to deny the fact, given the massive scale of the bombing.

Is the government now going to wake up and do some cleaning-up work? One cannot be very sure of that. From the intelligence report(s) disclosed by the Minister, it becomes evident that the terror attacks were planned for August 15 -- the 30th anniversary of the tragic and brutal assassination of the nation's founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family in 1975.

This fact points clearly to who might have unleashed this orchestrated campaign of countrywide bombing. The timing suggests that the perpetrators might be the defeated forces of 1971 war of independence. There is hardly any doubt that one of the main defeated force of 1971 was the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is part of the current alliance government.

In my opinion, it is unlikely that such a huge terror campaign could have been launched by fundamentalists in the country without the support, patronisation, or at least the knowledge of Jamaat. No other Islamic groups in the county have such considerable logistical and organisational capacity. It is understandably doubtful that the present government will crack down on these shadowy but menacing extremist groups.

Yet, for the sake of our nation, it is imperative for the government to exterminate these groups. Else the country is well on the march toward becoming a fundamentalist state.

And if that happens, the BNP will also not be saved from the ire of the terror of brutality. The nation learned its lesson in 1971 -- the memory of which is very vivid in the minds of our people. If we have to shed blood one more time at the hands of the obscurant adversaries within such a short time, that will not only be extremely unfortunate, but also will prove that Bangladeshis are a nation of simpletons.

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Appeared in New Age on 20 Aug, 2005 and Daily Star on 24 Aug, 2005