At least five people were killed and over a dozen injured when two blasts in quick succession rocked Lumbini Park near the state secretariat at around 2000 hours and another at Gokul Chat Bhandar 15 minutes later, on Saturday evening.

This year, twelve hardcore terrorists were arrested while crossing the porous Indo-Bangla border, up from two last year. HuJI has close links with the Jamiat-e-Islami, an ally of the Khaleda Zia led BNP government. The number of sleeper cells has gone up from 25 to 40 in the North East and Southern India, and its influence has grown 25 percent.

Intelligence officials at North Block have concluded that Bangladesh extremists were behind the blast and suspicion points to the Bangladesh-based terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). However, the Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta says, ‘It could be Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammad’.

Officials say the military regime is under pressure from the United States government. The former joint director of the Intelligence Bureau, J N Roy asserted, ‘Even at the foreign secretary level talks, they talked of a joint mechanism on cross border crime but the word terror was not used’.

The government plans to put together a joint mechanism on terror with Bangladesh. A lot more has to be done if the governments of both countries want to convert words into action. Whether the Bangladesh government is really fighting against terrorism or merely stalling for time, remains to be seen.