Editorial
Street vandalism a cause for concern
Accident is tragic, backlash can only compound the tragedy
IT is the same old story of people getting incensed by road accidents and turning their ire on objects that had nothing to do with the mishaps. The students of Chittagong Polytechnic Institute damaged at least 40 vehicles, setting some of them on fire, after a fellow student was killed in a road accident on Sunday in the port city. The Bogra-Dinajpur Highway remained blocked for fours as students of a school were protesting the deaths of two students in a road accident.
Deaths in road accident are hard to accept, particularly when people tend to think that the accident could be avoided had the driver been not so reckless. It is also true that a backlash to an accident tends to be equally tragic, if not more.
What the students have failed to realise is that they have made the lives and property of others unsafe in their bid to register protest against a tragic death. Reckless driving cannot be stopped by an equally reckless response to an accident. Surely, the administration will have to get to the bottom of such frequent losses of life through accidents and address their root causes. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the accident must be brought to justice with compensation paid to the victims.
What is also evident in their handling of the situation is that they have little faith in the law. This is something that the local administrations should take note of and insist upon bus operators and owners' associations to put an accident prevention strategy in place.
It seems some people, particularly a section of students, have developed the habit of giving vent to their grievances in a violent manner, and there is nobody to take a stand against such activities. The law enforcers fail to protect the innocent bystanders who usually fall victim to wanton violence. So, the victims have nowhere to go when the mob psychology overtakes sanity following accidents.
Accidents will have to be prevented as far as possible, but it must also be ensured that the accidents do not give the unruly young men the licence to do whatever they like. The law has to take its own logical course, sparing none in the process.
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