If you think of it, suicide bombs act as the last resort, as the culmination of anger and frustration against oppression and injustice. When the only way to protest is to maximize return on investment in self-destruction. The suicide bomber blows himself up as a metaphysical (symbolic protest against a brutal force, while increasing the number of retribution by taking down multiple enemies. It happens in Palestine, it happens in Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan and many other countries?

But they have clearly defined enemies in those countries, either occupying forces, or separatist movements or sectarian rioters. Who exactly is the enemy of the suicide bombers who chose to dismember themselves in Ghazipur, Chittagong and Jhalakathi? Why are they targeting judges, lawyers and courthouses? None of them make the laws, and none of them decide how to run the country. They merely interpret the law, cross-examine witnesses and give verdicts, mere instruments in the ongoing saga of crime and punishment.

Not to say, these instruments are flawless. Some of them also take bribe, cheat, lie, compromise, and perpetrate nefarious acts to distort justice. Some of them are perhaps as guilty as the criminals they try, undermining law instead of upholding it. But why should they become the targets while more notorious people are around? Why not police stations? Why not politicians? Why not corrupt bureaucrats who are milking the country?

Then it's not the time to look for questions, but to find answers. The suicide bombers who entered the courthouses with deadly explosives strapped to their bodies must have had some death-braving logic. Someone somehow must have convinced them that it was the right thing to do, to establish God's rule in the country, to eradicate vices, to go to heaven. Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and two other banned groups named Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and Harkatul Jihad have claimed they have got 2000 suicide bombers who are ready to go.

When a suspected car bomb exploded underneath the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, an eyewitness named Bruce Pomper said, "It felt like an airplane hit the building." In September 2001, his words proved prophetic as planes indeed hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center and razed them to the ground. But then who could tell it was going to happen like this, that the beast of terror was going to get so furious and ruthless that it would change the course of our civilization for good.

We can blame it on anybody we want. We can blame it on Osama bin Laden, we can blame it on George W. Bush. We can blame it on the government, the opposition, the Jamaat-e-Islami and all those militants out there waiting to strike. But the rude awakening is that the time for rhetoric is over, because what we have been debating for last several years is now real. Perhaps the two suicide attacks in two courthouses last Tuesday have some similarity with the attacks on the Twin Towers, two identical targets, two seats of justice, two symbols of a decadent system.

Yet the means doesn't justify the end. We have got corruption, all sorts of moral deviations, social ills that can easily upset devout souls, souls believing in purity, fairness and justice. Those who have been plundering the country, those who have been taking it for granted, those who have been overstepping their limits in greed, tyranny, hedonism, hypocrisy, arrogance and profligacy, these people need to be held accountable for their mischief, and brought to justice for their guilt.

Is suicide bombing the right way to do it? Besides, the legal system is so remote from the real problem that to address it by throwing bombs into the courthouses is as ludicrous as trying to cook your dinner on top of a tree while lighting the fire at the bottom. The point is that while somebody must do something about our rotten society, it can't come by the barrel of a gun or bang of a bomb. It can bring more confrontation and division, without bringing the change we need. It will be waste of time and lives, barking up the wrong tree.

Our nation is seething with anger in the wake of Tuesday's bomb attacks as lawyers and politicians took the streets and called for another strike. Then again people who choose to tear their limbs to make a point are too silly to be rectified by a strike or two. These are deranged minds that run on maximum moral overdrive, their conviction caught between rock of religion and a hard place of delusions, their minds intoxicated with the raging passion to change the world.

Nothing is wrong with that so long as one knows where to draw the line. The revolutionaries of the old days accosted martyrdom by standing up to a tyrant or debauch, risking their lives for values, principles, justice and freedom. They threw bombs, drew knives and fired guns, and then, when caught, walked up to gallows or lined up in the firing squad holding their heads high. Some of them carried cyanide buttons, which they swallowed if they couldn't stand the torture or approached breakdown before giving confessions.

The suicide bomber takes no risk and comes prepared to die. He gives out justice and takes the punishment. He shrinks the judicial system within his madness, ruling out prospects of trial, lawyers, courtrooms, judges and hangmen. All those roles rolled into one, the suicide bomber changes the face of martyrdom, at once becoming the victim and the victimizer. You will no longer see a rebel hanging from the hangman's rope, or kneeling before the guillotine waiting to be beheaded. You will no longer get a chance to see them in the firing squads or gas chambers. You will not even see their faces at times, disfigured by the blast of bombs, faceless, nameless, like a James Bond gadget that turns into smoke after the job is done.

That explains why the suicide bombers have so much spite against the organized justice where men are tried under man-made laws. But that is only the starting point. They are getting into other areas, threatening to blow up administrative presences, diplomatic missions, and the headquarters of the national airline. They have threatened to kill the judges when they go home for the winter vacation in December. It is obvious that they are blind with rage, even oblivious to common sense that in their ruthless behaviour, they are committing what they condemn, the same lawlessness, despair and hatred splattered by their exploding bodies as they swear to fix through their sacrifice.

Last Tuesday was our own 9/11 (though it was 11/29). It is the beginning of a new chapter in our history when we are going to watch over a progressive dichotomy in our mental space between criminals and crusaders. We are going to have organized crime on one side and then the self-made vigilantes on the other, clash of convictions that will push us further down the collision course. We need an army to invade that space, an army of character, courage, and ruthless conviction before they stockpile more weapons of mass destruction.

I don't mean the real army. It's just a figure of speech!

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.