One hears very often from a few inveterate optimists that Bangladesh has seen the end of religious extremism. We have been continually cautioning against entertaining any euphoria that absence of demonstrative activity on their part is not an indication of the demise of the religious extremists altogether. Yesterday's extensive report in this paper, detailing how one of the prominent proscribed extremist groups has been regrouping over the last several years, bears out our warning.

Admittedly, there has been no palpable activity by the religious extremist groups since the brutal Holey Artisan killings in July 2016, but as we had predicted earlier, most of these groups had gone into a mode of suspended animation after that incident to avoid the intensive offensive launched by our security forces to pre-empt their future actions. That they have not been able to launch any major attack since 2016 speaks of the success of our security agencies, particularly the Anti-Terrorism Task Force.

The said report confirms what experts have warned us about from time to time. These groups will bide time and wait for an opportune moment to strike. In the meanwhile, they will do as the Ansarullah Bangladesh Team (ABT) is doing—recruiting through online platforms, making use of communication technology to recruit new members and for propagating their message, targeting the unsuspecting segment of the society and those vulnerable because of their monetary or societal standing.   We believe that the said reports also provide several pointers that the administration should take cognisance of. What should be constantly kept in mind is that these groups sustain because of certain enabling factors. Notwithstanding the persuasiveness of their ideological propaganda, the administration needs to identify their target audience as well their sympathisers. The next matter that should be addressed are the issues that they exploit to garner support, and address those. These could be economic, social as well as political. And it is the political issues that these groups would exploit primarily, gaining of political power being their ultimate objective without which their religious objective would remain unfulfilled. A political void or a turmoil is what they wait for to pounce. And all efforts must be made to turn the tap off their monetary support. We must never let our guard down when it comes to religious extremists.