Earlier 20 people were picked up following the incident and subsequently released for lack of evidence linking their involvement in the incident.

It is said that the lately arrested individuals might have had links with the Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HUJI), a militant Islamist organisation, banned quite sometime ago. In recent times the media had reported that this very HUJI had appeared under a different name and even held public meetings and gave interviews to the press. We fail to understand as to how a banned militant organisation like HUJI continues to carry on with its activities unhindered and undaunted?

The media has also reported that two of the militants now under custody and being investigated had been arrested on 14 December, 2005 following the countrywide bomb attack on August 17 but were subsequently released. The current investigation has also revealed that one of the two arrested is a former student of the Quwomi Maddrassah while the other was a student of yet another Madrassah of Sunamganj in Sylhet.

It is our impression that the investigations into the acts of militants are conducted in a slow, half-hearted and complicated manner. The sequence of events into the investigation of the grenade attack on the British High Commissioner and into the murder of SMS Kibria create such an impression.

There is no denying the fact that some misgiving persists in the public mind about the government's commitment in dealing with the entire gamut of Islamist militancy in the country despite some visible measure of success. Religious extremism, if allowed to continue unabated and unchecked or even dealt with on a piecemeal basis is bound to make security of the country vulnerable, both internally and externally.