We do not know whether it is a “confidence-building measure”, a rather deceptive term in South Asian diplomacy. But days before Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, it is fairly palpable that the Bangladesh government has ramped up the pressure on Islamist fundamentalists. This is borne out by the continuing anti-militant operation being coordinated ~ however belatedly ~ by the army’s division based in Sylhet, significantly a border state.

Further evidence of Dhaka’s somewhat seasonal determination to confront militants was available on Sunday when the Bangladesh High Court upheld the death sentence on two convicts for the murder of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013.

Several such killings of secularist writers, atheists and teachers, even Hindu priests, have taken place since then, but the theoretically secular Awami League government has either been impervious to such murders or the law-enforcement agencies, whether in Dhaka or further afield, have tacitly condoned such outrage

 Apart from the two who face the gallows, the High Court has awarded life imprisonment for one and varying periods of jail terms to five others.

The Bench observed that the seven convicts in the Rajib murder case “have gone to the dogs due to their parents’ failure to give them proper education”. It would be less than fair to blame it on the previous generation though.

The modus operandi of the killings ~ in particular the use of machetes ~ suggests the influence of ISIS, which has been extending its tentacles from the cradle of Iraq and Syria… to Pakistan and Afghanistan, not to forget the recurrent mayhem in Europe.

The judiciary has somehow skirted the fundamental malaise, and this is concordant with the government’s denial of the Caliphate’s presence in Bangladesh. Even an oblique confirmation on that score would have been embarassing for the Dhaka delegation before Hasina’s aircraft touches down in Delhi on 7 April. It is a conjunction of the executive and the judiciary, with profound implications in terms of bilateral ties.

There is no denying that the perceived secular dispensation in Dhaka has been sluggish in its efforts to bring the killers in not dissimilar incidents to book. The government’s “zero-tolerance” policy is not reflected in the serial killings.

Sunday’s judgment is critical too for the High Court’s observations on the roles the State ~ as an entity of governance ~ imams and parents should play so that the youth do not get involved in militancy. There is a caveat too for the atheists, the target of the fundamentalists’ ire ~ Even if any person does not believe in any religion, he or she should not make any disparaging comments about religion, the High Court observed.

The responsibility ultimately devolves on the party and the government. In the post-Mujib era, successive dispensations, even during a military interregnum, have played footsie with the militants.