Militants escaping from police custody is a failure on our part: RAB DG

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Director General M Khurshid Hossain has said the incident of escape of two militants from the police custody on 20 November is a kind of failure of the law enforcers.

"We definitely believe in self-criticism. It was our failure. The way the two militants escaped indicates that they planned it in jail for a long time. We have not been able to catch them yet, but we are continuing our raids," the RAB director general told journalists while visiting the Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday.

However, he added that even if the militants try to rise again, they will not be able to get organised well due to the continued crackdown. 

Echoing him, the DMP commissioner Khandker Golam Faruq while talking to journalists after visiting the Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday, said, "They (the militants) will be arrested soon. We have already identified their associates. We will arrest the rest of them soon."

"There is no terrorist threat (in the country now)," the DMP commissioner added.

Meanwhile, law enforcers have scaled up securities in the Suhrawardy Udyan area ahead of the 22nd national council of the Awami League, said the DMP commissioner.

The security arrangements in the area were made keeping Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina's security in mind, he added.

He said, "The prime minister survived many attempts on her life in the past. Her life seems to be always at stake. The power defeated in the Liberation War repeatedly tried to assassin her. 

"There are many such previous attacks, like the 21 August and Tungipara attacks. We have deployed enough forces keeping those attacks in mind."  

He, however, dismissed any security threat surrounding the council which is likely to see the participation of more than one lakh leaders and activists of the ruling party.