In a latest development, policymakers of the government at a meeting with Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in the chair discussed the status of the NSC and maintained it remains ineffective. This observation came while discussing a proposal to form a national defence committee earlier this year.

The meeting emphasised that the NSC should be made effective and decided to sit again in three months to discuss the proposition for a defence committee to coordinate the armed forces, highly placed sources said.

But the policymakers neither sat to discuss the issue nor took further steps after the January meet to make the NSC effective.

"When I was in office I heard some talks for convening a meeting of the National Security Council, but ultimately no meeting was held," immediate past defence secretary KM Ehsanul Haque told The Daily Star.

The former defence secretary said he does not know more than this about the NSC.

Echoing the same view, former chief of army staff Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, who was an NSC member, said, "The council as far I know has never convened a meeting since its formation."

Asked about the NSC, former cabinet secretary and incumbent Agriculture Minister MK Anwar told The Daily Star he is not aware of such a council.

The existence of the country's top security body headed by the prime minister thus remains in the dark, prompting demands for formation of an NSC in the wake of the recent bomb attacks.

Senior defence ministry officials could not say the date of the council's inception, expressing their ignorance about it.

"I've come to know for the first time from you about existence of such a security body," a senior official serving the defence ministry for over seven years told The Daily Star reporter.

Security analysts blame this situation on the successive governments' policy of denial of threats to national security.

They stressed the need for making the NSC functional on emergency basis in the wake of the August 17 countrywide explosions.

The analysts also raised the question as to who advises the prime minister on national security in absence of an effective council.

Other South Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have made their NSCs effective and hold regular meetings to ensure national security.

These NSCs even review the current security and political situations in neighbouring countries and their implications for national security and bilateral relations.

The structure of the NSC, formed at the end of the Ershad regime, was changed on several occasions in the last 15 years.

Currently, the NSC has 24 members, but no government took steps to make the council functional.

A number of government high-ups, who were in service during the Ershad regime, expressed their views to The Daily Star.

They said NSC failed to become functional as the initiative drew flak from different quarters since Ershad had planned to launch the council with jurisdiction to review any cabinet decision.

After the fall of the military ruler, the NSC took a different shape during the previous governments of the BNP and the Awami League.

The NSC was recast to be headed by the prime minister and dominated by policymakers, and it also followed the practices of other democratic countries.

In the present structure, though only in book, the prime minister is the council head and a number of senior ministers including the finance, foreign, home, defence, industries ministers and the chiefs of three armed forces are members.

The NSC in the South Asian countries has become a significant department with separate secretaries to advise security affairs.

Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, also defence advisor to the prime minister, said the NSC should be activated immediately in the wake of the August 17 blasts.

"A meeting of the council should be convened on emergency basis to assess the threats to national security," Mahbubur, also chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the defence ministry, told The Daily Star.

Well-known security analyst Maj Gen (retd) Syed Mohammad Ibrahim said the NSC is required so that a group of professionals can objectively assess the security situation and advise on it.

"Security does not mean only external aggression, it also means problems or situations which leave the lives of citizens individually or collectively, environmentally, politically or economically insecure.

"Such professionals may come from various disciplines, in no way only from military service. It has nothing to do with the unpopular event of martial law."

On the government policy of denial of the threat to national security, he said, "The situation in Bangladesh can be compared to the household scenario where white ants eat away furniture, drink away milk [from the milk pot in village houses] while unguarded.

"We have enemies within our politics and security situation, and the surprising reality is we don't want to recognise it."