In recent months, the battering the so-called Islamic State has taken in Syria and elsewhere has left it in bad shape. But that is not saying that it is dead, that it has been put out of life. This fact emerges through the many local outfits of terror that are clearly at work in countries like Sri Lanka. Indeed, the operations which Bangladesh's security forces carried out in Basila in Dhaka the other day are proof, if proof were needed, that the local agents of ISIS remain ready to cause more devastation in the country.

The Easter Sunday explosions in Sri Lanka, with their resultant casualties, are evidence of the evil which these Islamist fanatics are yet ready to put societies through. The grave need, therefore, for societies and nations to be in a constant state of alert is there. Bangladesh's Prime Minister has warned of such a need. In Sri Lanka, after its failure to keep tabs on terrorists despite the many warnings prior to Easter Sunday, the government has now sat up and gone into a vigorous operation to flush out the terrorists who may yet be hiding across the island nation. A number of terrorists have already been killed and a ban on face-covering veils has been clamped throughout the country.

Here in Bangladesh, there are people who have in somewhat smug manner happily suggested that terrorists can never find space in Bangladesh. Such complacence is unacceptable. The evil that Islamist militants can do in our country has already been seen, through the murder of bloggers, publishers, freethinkers and foreigners. It will therefore not be wise to pretend that God is in His heaven and all's right with the world. The threat held out by a previously unknown outfit, al Mursalat, to be in Bangladesh soon, its dark objective being to murder and maim in a furtherance of its sinister objectives, must not be taken lightly.

A disturbing truth arising from the Sri Lankan tragedy as well as from tragic happenings in Bangladesh and elsewhere is that many of the militants engaging in terrorist activities come from a background of good, well-to-do upbringing. That is where the danger lies, for such people can easily indoctrinate the less educated in lessons of religious hate culminating in all-encompassing violence. Tabs must also be kept on the more incendiary of preachers, who often turn their Friday pulpits into instruments to spout hate against the followers of other faiths.

Terrorism must not be allowed to make further havoc of our world.