WITH Wednesday’s hanging of Motiur Rahman Nizami, the number of prominent opposition leaders executed in Bangladesh has risen to five, four of them belonging to the Jamaat-i-Islami and the fifth one to the main opposition Bangladesh National Party headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia.

Both the JI chief and BNP leader Salahuddin Chowdhury, who was hanged last year, were former legislators, the latter having been elected six times from Chittagong.

Astonishing as it sounds, Chowdhury was in Karachi in 1971 when the civil war was going on.

The trials were termed flawed by international rights agencies, which said the legal process was far below acceptable international standards.

Yet Prime Minister Hasina Wajed seems indifferent to the criticism of her policies, which smack of political persecution and appear odd at a time when a wave of extremist violence has rocked Bangladesh.

The militant Islamic State group has either secured a foothold in the country or extremists are using its nomenclature to target bloggers, members of minority communities and foreigners.

What has added to the extremists’ power to strike is the Awami League government’s weak response to the terror wave.

Observers of the Bangladesh scene say the government has tried to downplay the crisis, and investigations into the terrorist attacks have been half-hearted for political reasons.

The government denies the involvement of IS or Al Qaeda in acts of terror, has outlawed some militant groups and insists that the violence is home-grown, but the thrust of its propaganda has tried to establish a link between the BNP-JI alliance and IS and Al Qaeda.

It is time Ms Wajed tackled the day’s problems, which are many and pressing. She should know that her country is party to the 1974 tripartite agreement at New Delhi, when Bangladesh agreed not to proceed with any trials because its founder and her father, Mujibur Rahman, had decided to “forget the past and make a fresh start”.

Instead, she should work for national reconciliation and focus on her country’s economic development.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2016