In Counter-Terror Move, Bangladesh Launches Tests of Pinpointed Internet Blackouts

Bangladeshi telecommunications authorities said they began testing blackouts of internet and mobile phone services in Dhaka on Monday to determine if they could disrupt communications between terrorists during an attack at a specific location.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission launched the tests on the one-month anniversary of a terrorist attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery café in Dhaka that left 20 hostages dead.

According to Bangladeshi officials, the attackers were able to communicate with their handlers and militant networks via mobile phones and internet service during the course of the overnight siege at the upscale café in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter.

The test began as tens of thousands of students and faculty members from universities, schools and Islamic boarding schools across the country marked the anniversary of the attack by forming human chains in a show of protest against terrorism and militancy.

“We will run a drill of internet and mobile network blackouts Monday afternoon through early Tuesday. The trial-blackout will help us prepare the operational details on blackouts in a small area in case we need to cut off terrorists’ communication networks,” Shahjahan Mahmood, chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), told BenarNews.

The commission has lacked the ability to cut off internet connections in a particular area instantly, and blackout tests would help the BTRC figure out whether such action is possible, he said.

Such pinpoint blackouts would have a positive effect because terrorists rely on the internet and mobile phones to talk among themselves, according to telecommunications journalist Muhammad Zahidul Islam.

“In many cases, police cannot catch the militants and criminals because they communicate over social media and leave their dens before police raids. The blackout would enable authorities to cut internet and mobile networks before carrying out operations against the militants in future,” he told BenarNews.

Human chains

Meanwhile, Bangladeshi Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid led human-chain protests marking the one-month anniversary of the July 1 attack.

“We will surely defeat the militants through a social movement like this. Look at the massive crowds across the country [that] have stood hand-in-hand to denounce the militants and terrorists,” Nahid told a crowd of demonstrators in Dhaka.

Some of the demonstrators who were protecting against militancy came from North South University (NSU) in Dhaka, where at least one of the five slain men who perpetrated the attack studied.

“As a student of North South University, I am really ashamed … They brought a bad name to NSU and the country. We hate all terrorists and militants,” Rubayet Hossain, an NSU student who joined the human chain, told BenarNews.

After the attack, Bangladeshi officials announced that the five were among 15 youths, including from privileged backgrounds, who had been missing from their schools and families for months.

“Militancy will never take root in Bangladesh. Bangladeshis love religion but they are not fanatics. We believe in tolerance and peace – the true messages of Islam. No religion, including Islam, preaches violence and hatred,” Mahbubur Rahman, a student at the Islamia Senior Madrasa in southeastern Bandarban district, told BenarNews in a phone interview.