Bitter Truth
Contain crimes from reaching new heights
FOR the last three months, Dhaka city has been witness to a series of horrific crimes including murder, extortion and rape, some of which happened in unusual circumstances. The murder of Fariduddin, a businessman at Shyampur, in the morning of August 14 last while he was taking breakfast in his own restaurant followed by the killing of Rubel Howladar, a driver of a microbus, on the same day at Gulshan Link road after taking possession of his vehicle, are painful reminders of the violence and anarchy that gripped the country in the pre 1/11 days. The deteriorating law and order situation that marked the rule of the past alliance government had shown remarkable signs of improvement after the take over by the present CTG, but now with their days numbered and all eyes focused on holding the parliamentary elections in December next, the law and order has slipped considerably.
Incidents of crime like murder and mugging are now the main topic of household discussions. Dhaka city has also attained the dubious distinction of being a criminals' paradise, where the most heinous crimes are committed in broad daylight. Report carried by the media on September 15 last indicated that a group of gangsters coming by motorcycle blocked the movement of a microbus carrying Biplob Chakravarty, AGM and three other employees of ACI near Tejgaon Industrial Area and snatched 52 lakh taka kept in several cartons in the microbus after shooting Biplob because he resisted. Biplob was admitted to a city hospital in a critical condition. On September 29, in the Tongi area under Gazipur Thana, muggers coming by motorcycle extorted two and half lakh taka from a young man after shooting him down.
Incidents of horrific crimes like mugging and murder are too many to be mentioned within the narrow space of a column. Abu Yousuf (28), a businessman in the Tikatully area was shot on October 10 last as he refused earlier to pay toll to the extortionists as per their demand . In another incident at Polash under Narsingdi upazila burglars looted 11 lakh taka in cash and 13 thousand Saudi riyal from the house of Nurul Islam on October 9 last after stabbing his son and daughter-in-law who had returned from Saudi Arabia some days ago. Other than crimes like dare- devil robbery in and around the city limits, mugging is a very common and torturous, even murderous type of hassle people have to undergo these days. People are afraid to take the cases of their trauma and suffering to the police. Because fear of corruption, retaliation and harassment on the other end of the road to justice has rather become usual. The whole endeavour becomes a tortuous process, with no support coming to the victim from any quarters. What is worse is that the law enforcers seem to have realised they can get away without being booked because they can twist laws, invent loopholes and manipulate tricky factors or points in their favour for any wrongdoing or not doing the 'duty'.
Unhappily for the country, in most such cases of crimes, young men with drug habits born of both poor as well as affluent parents are getting involved because of lack of moral and social values in society, influence of satellite TV and inadequate games and recreational facilities.
Two juvenile muggers Liton and Ranju of Maghbazar area who killed two school boys of Nayatola after abusing them sexually in April last confessed to the Detective Branch of the Police their involvement in other crimes, and that they committed these gruesome killings while being under the influence of vicious drug cannabis. "These criminals are in pain inside"so says a social psychologist in the country "acting out their pain, in most cases on innocent victims."
Admittedly true, drug coupled with inducement of some godfathers with money and weapons make potent cocktail that fuels crime these days. In most cases these godfathers utilize them to either control or eliminate their business competitors or political rivals. Allegations are rife that these godfathers operate their invisible business in the form of clandestine terror attacks with the protection and patronage of some high ups in administration and politics.
The sequel to factional politics has simmered in the country for the last seven years or more. But in recent times hatred, animosity, rivalry and greed for power and money just before the national and upazila polls have touched new heights. That in turn have sparked more killings and atrocities. Report carried by the media in the recent past indicated that in the Tala upazila of Satkhira district, ten elected representatives at upazila level including one former Parliament member were killed as a sequel to factional politics. The recent killing of Arifuzzaman Chanchol, a popular Jubodal leader and Chairman of Dhandia Union Council under Tala upazila by a notorious rebel group vying for power in the upcoming upazila elections, as alleged in the media report quoting the S.P of Satkhira district, points to clandestine pattern of politics taking roots in most areas of the country.
People learnt with shock again in the morning of October 14 that senior joint secretary of Khulna city AL and aspirant for the Khulna-3 constituency in the upcoming national polls, Khan Ibne Zaman was hacked to death by unidentified assailants who entered Zaman's house by scaling the boundary wall of his three-storey house at Khalishpur. Given Khulna's history of factional as well as journalist killing, the administration should have anticipated trouble in the pre- poll days and taken precautions. Khulna witnessed killing of at least 13 journalists and some prominent political leaders and activists during the last ten years.
People only wonder how these spate of killings and extortion and terrorist attacks could go on unabated when the country's newspapers are full throated in their vilification of the dirty activities of a handful of goons. How could the whole society become captive in the hands of a limited number of monstrously dreaded gangsters? All these grotesque incidents send shock waves through the spine of an impoverished nation that has helplessly witnessed so much of these killings, robbing, other atrocities in recent times. The present state of things that have rocked the community and the society is a sort of anarchy. Anarchy, as all people know, is an excess of freedom. Anarchy is the absence of rules, ethical limits, and any moral sense. These criminals are psychic cases. They have lost, perhaps never developed, that psychic appendage we call conscience.
In the core of all such dastardly acts , there is one call that cry out for solution long since. We must all assume our responsibilities for not being indifferent to the circumstances that breed crimes of this sort. We must look to the communities that know nothing but frustration. We have seen some of our past leaders and stalwarts of the past regime indulge in corruption and immoral acts and then resign or leave the country in the face of public protest. We had bureaucrats amassing wealth and siphoning that out of the country without accountability and with impunity. Many of our youngsters see and act it out.
However the terrorists and gangsters must be shown what incalculable harm they have done to the society and must be made to pay the price. While releasing the dreaded criminals and drug lords out on bail in the face of vociferous arguments of the defence and on the plea of lax and shoddy police investigation report, it would be better for all concerned with the dispensation of justice to remember what Justice Murshed, Chief Justice of the then East Pakistan, said during the turbulent days of then Pakistani President Ayub Khan's dictatorial rule: "The strength of the Judiciary does not lie in the panoplied authority of physical might but in the commands it has over the minds and hearts of men. Such respect and prestige are the result of just decisions given with independence and courage. The Court that cannot stand before the unjust fury of an impassioned mob or the arrogant high-handedness of misguided authority is not worthy of its tradition. It would indeed be a sad day when a single individual may have the slightest reason for entertaining any misgiving with regard to obtaining justice in his case. This will spell the doom of civilized existence."
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