Terror gripped Bangladesh during the past week, with two terrorist attacks launched in the South Asian nation: one in a café in the capital Dhaka, which killed 21 foreign hostages, and another at a checkpoint during a Muslim holiday, which claimed the lives of three people.
A Christian solidarity group recently said that these kinds of violent extremist attacks are worsening in Bangladesh, and that these two attacks over the past few days may not be the last that the predominantly Muslim nation will see.
Speaking to Vatican Radio, Georgia Gogarty of the South Asia Team for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, shared that people in Bangladesh are already in a state of fear and shock following the recent terrorist incidents.
"People are certainly very, very fearful. They're concerned with their safety. They're concerned about going out. People we've worked with have already told us even before the attack that they were changing their movement. They were changing how often they go out, where they went to," Gogarty said in the radio interview.
She explained that what started out as an attack on bloggers has started to victimise other groups, including Christians.
"We've had a number of targeted killings that focused on secular bloggers and have now expanded towards local people also targeting religious minorities like Hindus, Christians, as well as people who have outspoken about fundamentalism," she said.
What makes matters worse, she added, is the fact that the current government in Bangladesh seems to be using the attacks for political advantage, and ruling out the possibility that foreign groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) may have a hand in these violent incidents.
"What we have gathered is that the current government is that it is homegrown terrorists and they are in complete denial that this could be linked to terrorist groups outside Bangladesh, whether al-Qaeda or ISIS," Gogarty explained.
She further said that the government needs "to be more honest about who is responsible" for these attacks, and that officials "need to come down and condemn the attacks when they happen."
