Harking back to dark age?

Notwithstanding a precipitation in our moral standard, rapid erosion of our values and criminalisation of our society the semblance of an order still remained. The rule of the law of sorts was operative. The crimes continued to be committed. But then complaints were lodged with the law enforcing agencies, the courts functioned and the justices were dispensed even if they could have been flawed. Our conscience and value system remained unassailable. The rampart of those tenets of a civilized society is now under assault. There is a mockery of law with people increasingly taking it in their hand. In an ominous development in the wilderness of the 'chars' of Noakhali as many as 31 forest bandits were lynched to death.

Can human lives be dispensable that way in a civilized society -- let alone the question of bestiality involved in the macabre killings? There was indeed a jungle law in the jungles where a mob justice was resorted to with the law enforcing agencies playing an ambivalent role. On one hand they decried one taking law in his own hand; on the other they aided the mob in awarding the bandit summary punishment.

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The bandits could have committed crimes, but they deserved to be brought under fair trial. Each one of them was innocent until proved guilty. Yet they were meted with a brutality not acceptable in any society under rule of law. The precedent set in the remote 'chars' of Noakhali can level up to anarchy of unpredictable dimension and intensity. The carnage could take place when rule of jungle prevailed in primitive society.

The flouting of law and the people taking it in their hand is nothing new in this country when a double standard of law, its discriminate application and the dubious role of the law enforcing agencies made law a suspect in the eye of the public who out of desperation often took law in their own hand. In the process the innocents also were victimised because many used it as a cover to settle old score. However, the scale and intensity of the trend are indeed alarming pushing us all in a medieval mould.

In another grim development an entire family of 11 including women and children was burnt to death in Banskhali. It is a chilling reminder of medieval age where the feudal despots perpetrated such cruelties with impunity. Though in today's enlightenment, human rights alacrity and media focus this is unthinkable, yet the elements pulling the society backward could gather courage to enact it in Bangladesh, the country known for its moderate image. That is where is the anxiety.

In the meantime the custodial deaths are on the rise. There have been as many 50 custodial deaths in last two months, as reported in the press. Every human life is accountable. It is not clear how the authority will account for, these deaths. There were custodial deaths also during Operation Clean Heart which drew flak from Amnesty International. Yet such mysterious deaths are steadily rising. Also thickening are the mystery around such deaths. In case of the death of Amar Das, a vital clue to the abduction of businessman-politician Jamaluddin Chowdhury, the role of the custodians has come under heavy criticisms. The reaction to the death of Suman has exploded in the street. Both the deaths in custody and public reaction to them are building up a situation which is in no way desirable. It is only deflecting us from the main issues facing the nation.

Besides, the methods used in crimes are not only brutal, they are reminiscent of cruelties perpetrated in primitive society like hacking one to death, cutting one's jugular veins, dismembering the body of the victim or killing after raping. All these syndromes point to perversion and an aberration bordering on insanity. Bangladesh came into being to rid our people of a reactionary trend as well as obscurantism that were gripped with. It is an irony that after more than three decades of mixed experience we are thrown back to a dark age milieu we always dreaded. The reactionary politics, repression and chicanery were what we fought against only to witness them after their resurgence. Indeed the history is repeating in full fury with the reappearance of all that we discarded.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.