Shalish in Gazipur

A lawyer present there beat up both Khuki and Akbar but it is the former who lost her senses in the process. As if that wasn't enough -- when she regained consciousness, the hapless girl was again savagely beaten up. In fact, she was so badly injured that she had to be sent home on a rickshaw van accompanied by a village chowkidar. Akbar meanwhile had gone home on his own. What is astonishing, not a single voice or finger was raised in protest against the barbaric act. Khuki's family had not even been informed of the forthcoming 'shalish', which means poor Khuki suffered the humiliation all by herself.

'Shalish' is meant to be a medium for out-of-court settlement of disputes or tiffs. But we have witnessed how 'shalish' has been abused by local influentials time and again. The incident regarding Khuki and Akbar is hardly an isolated one. There have been many such occurrences where the weak get oppressed by the strong who revel in taking the law into their own hands. We have always condemned extra-judicial verdicts -- be it a fatwa or something else. Though in Gazipur there was no fatwa as such, we have no hesitation in saying that it was no less reprehensible.

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