Editorial
The unending 'crossfire' deaths
This national shame must come to an end
It is time to register our protest once more on the issue of 'crossfire' killings. In the past five years, 1,500 people have died in what has been given out as encounters, when the security forces were 'compelled' to fire back in 'self-defence.' And in the last five months, 60 individuals have lost their lives in 'crossfire' incidents all over the country. To say that we are shocked would be an understatement. We are, all of us who believe in decency and the rule of law, simply outraged. The time has now come for us to tell the authorities that enough is enough. Far too many killings of individuals have gone on in the name of preserving or ensuring law and order than one can justify. More important is the fact that no society can stand by and witness citizens dying in dubious and extra-judicial circumstances. What has become clear over the years is that such killings only spawn more killings, leaving the spectre of the barbaric looming over the social structure.
The so-called crossfire killings are, to our intense regret, a sign of the desperation of the government where keeping law and order is concerned. There may be the legal loopholes which the authorities feel may enable criminals to go free. There is a point there, but it is not good enough. When a government gets desperate and resorts to methods that go beyond the pale of the law, it is an entire nation that is left feeling ashamed. Our shame has been unmitigated in the last few years. These 'crossfire' deaths have only reminded us of the rightwing death squads which operated in various countries of Latin America in the 1980s. In an important sense, though, our situation is worse because those doing the killings happen to be our state agencies, in this case the Rapid Action Battalion and the police. The impunity with which these agencies have operated is a blotch on the state and on civilized life as a whole.
We would like to remind the government that their politics of change, as envisaged in the Awami League election manifesto, included a promise to put an end to extra-judicial killings. Nine months into office, the government not only has not stopped such killings but has also confounded the nation by its shifting thoughts on 'crossfire' murders. The home minister goes into defensive mode about the killings. The minister of state for home says with a straight face that there is no such thing as crossfire killings. Then our question is: how are all these people being caught and then found, mysteriously, dead? The government as also everyone else must face up to the realities, which is that these deaths in 'crossfire' are not only a repudiation of the rule of law but also a frontal assault on the principles of morality. They must be stopped immediately, if we are to stand up and be counted among the civilized councils of the world.
We repeat: the 'crossfire' shame, or call it scandal, has gone on long enough, has shamed us long enough, has been protested long enough, has dehumanized us long enough. It must stop here and now. And let those who have indulged in this tragic trivialisation of life be made to account for their trigger-happy behaviour.
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