Analysis: Ban, an answer to Ansarullah?

The government's ban on Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), an Islamist outfit blamed for the killings of two free-thinkers and bloggers in the capital and one in Sylhet town in a span of only 75 days, came on the heel of utter failure of the law enforcing agencies to arrest the killers and unearth their dens.

Now that the ban is in place, it is supposed to help arrest and punish the killers, and destroy the gang so that it can't carry out any further terrorist acts.

Police now have the mandate to launch a crackdown on the outfit and bring gang members to book for their deadly acts.

But many may ask that the outfit is already operating secretly from hiding. And police and intelligence agencies have little or no clue about it. Investigators have been saying that ABT is very tactful, forms small sleeper cells to carry out operations and one cell is isolated from the other. Even the cell members do not know each other. The persons guiding them are also unknown to them. And they all use fake names. For this reason law enforcers are unable to trace them.

If Ansarullah operatives are not arrested and brought to justice then the ban will have no direct impact. But police officers seriously believe that the ban will act as a deterrent and the outfit operatives will be thinking twice before getting into action again.

One more point needs to be raised here. The law enforcers have been successful in detecting and arresting militants, and unearthing their missions to carry out subversive acts in the country. This is not an easy task.

But they failed to prove their ability and capacity in the cases of arresting killers of the bloggers.