Whither security of the people?
Helpless against criminals. Photo: Tanvir Ahmed/ Drik News
THIS government seems to be more focused on providing security to the political elites who are otherwise fortunate and powerful enough in this country to take care of their security, both physical and financial. The common people, who are not so fortunate enough and who voted this government and all previous political governments into power, have been left totally uncared for. No, I do not mean that the state should provide people with housing and transportation facilities and protection by security forces, either free or on payment. Neither would the poor people of this country demand it. All that the teeming millions would ask of this elected government and any future elected government is that the government and the concerned government agencies stand by them and extend a helping hand in protecting their lives and properties and the honour of their women, and ensuring that the wrong doers are brought to justice. Take the case of health care of the people. Dozens of babies have died recently just because they took spurious drugs produced and marketed by pharmaceutical companies with or without license from the government. Unfortunately, these are the babies of ordinary people, who are not fortunate enough to travel abroad for medical treatment or to buy imported drugs, which only the fortunate few elitist people can afford. We have a ministry of health and a watchdog outfit called health administration to ensure quality control of drugs in the market. No punitive action has been taken against anyone whose duty it was to check and control the quality of drugs being sold in the market. Supposing the babies who died before they could blossom into full-grown men and women had been the children of our ministers and lawmakers, would not the government have moved heaven and earth on this issue? Would not the minister of health have been sacked? Nothing of this sort has happened because it concerns the health of the common people of this country. A much-prized possession of a girl or a young woman is her chastity. It leaves a girl virtually dead and traumatised, and her family devastated, when she is raped. In our society, a girl or a woman raped by criminals is looked down upon and condemned as an object of shame and pity, while rapists move about freely. In a country where Islam is the religion of the overwhelming majority of the people, it is a pity that women are being raped and degraded on a scale never seen before. Thanks to the revolutionary advancement in the media, we now get to know all that is happening around us and even in the remote countryside. There is hardly a day when rape is not committed in this country. But not a single voice has been raised in the parliament condemning rape and rapists. Why this is so is not difficult to understand. It is because the victims of rape belong to families of poor people, the working class. It is also because the rapists happen to have a political tag attached to them, the tag being that of an activist of the ruling political party. No wonder the police and the local administration behave as if they see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. But they most certainly do evil as they, in fealty to the local political masters, do not go out to help the victims of rape and their families get justice. In most of the rape cases recently reported in the media the local police were said to be harassing the families of rape victims instead of trying to nab the criminals and bringing them to justice. Emboldened by the partisan and loyalist attitude of the local police, these political thugs have not only raped the poor girls but have also made video films of their sinful acts with the help of mobile phone. Leave aside public lashing of the rapists, not a single rapist has been arrested by the police and put on trial. Ah! In one bizarre case of gang rape, the local AL leaders punished the rapists in vigilante style. As the story goes, as many as 16 local activists of the ruling party in Kalapara (DS front page of October 6) abducted a class V11 school girl, raped her one by one and then left her, which created a sensation because on that day the local MP and state minister for water resources was present in Kalapara. Two days later, the local AL leaders sought to settle the matter through arbitration. They fined the rapists Tk.10,000 each and beat them up. Tk 1,60,000 realised as fine was handed over to the parents of the victim. The police looked on as spectators as the arbitration was going on. The family of the victim, including the victim herself, is under constant vigilance by the rapists. Later on, the deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police of Patuakhali visited Kalapara and quoted the victim as saying that she was not raped. The DC and the SP did not feel the necessity of having the girl medically tested to ascertain whether the girl was telling the truth. The matter ended there. The government and the local administration failed to provide security to the poor family of this victim of rape in the first instance. Now they have also denied the family justice for the wrongs suffered. Who will these poor people of this country turn to for security and justice?
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