Making government offices secure

The fire incident at the Secretariat that broke out in the wee hours on Thursday and caused colossal damage to official records raises the serious question as to how much secure is the government's administrative headquarters, though it is believed to be a high-security zone. Given its vital importance, it is only natural that the government would ensure safety and security of the Secretariat. But the fire incident made it clear that the nerve centre of the country's administration is not as secure as it should be. There must be serious loopholes in the overall security system of the buildings that house a good number of ministries and divisions. The gaps must be bridged to ensure security.

The fire incident at the Secretariat is indeed a mysterious one. Speculations are rife whether it is an accident or an act of sabotage. Everything will hopefully be clear after the probe committees formed by the government submit their reports. If the fire incident is an act of sabotage, it must be a part of the deepgoing conspiracies to undermine the interim government. This is quite possible when the government is making determined effort to reform the State administration and identify those who were involved in the July-August genocide and plundering of the public properties. The recent anti-government and anti-Bangladesh conspiracies and propaganda campaigns unleashed by defeated forces and their local and foreign backers only strengthen the suspicion that it was an act of sabotage. Then the burning issue at hand is to find out the perpetrators and put them in the dock.

If the fire might have broken out accidentally, it is crucially important to identify the causes behind it. Then there are reasons to believe that inspection over likely sources of fire and other destructive incidents is not being conducted on a regular basis. Against this background, the security system of the central government's offices must be overhauled and strengthened. In this connection, the suggestions made by the fire department that the gates of the secretariat buildings be widened for easy entry of firefighting vehicles and that too much decoration of office rooms with wood and other combustible substances be avoided should be seriously taken into consideration.

The fire incident caused substantial damage to the office rooms and, above all, burnt highly important documents of the government to ashes. It is not going to be an easy job to regain what have been lost. While a part of the documents may be recovered, some of those might have been lost forever. That sensitive documents related to state administration have been burnt suggests that most of them were recorded on paper. Once lost, such files and documents cannot be recovered. Distribution of the documents in a decentralised manner could help avoid such mishaps and loss of them forever. Introduction of digital technology and paperless documentation system offers the best possible solution to the task of preserving important documents. Complete digitalisation of administration is the best way to avoid untoward incidents.

The fire incident has brought before the interim government the immediate task of finding out the real causes behind it, assessing the extent of damage, recovering the lost document as much as possible and identifying the perpetrators involved in such an act of sabotage. Another important objective of the administration should be to examine the total security mechanism of the administrative headquarters and rearrange it in a way that such accidents do not repeat. The Thursday's fire incident underscores the need for unrelenting vigilance against possibilities of sabotage by disruptive forces.