Editorial
Slide in law and order
We welcome the acknowledgement, effective action awaited
The most common index of a government's efficiency is the state of law and order in the country. It needs hardly be said that there has been a marked increase in criminal and anti-social activities of late. We must, however, commend the Minister for Home for acknowledging this fact.
Her frank admission is quite a departure from an attitude of going into a denial mode whenever it came to the question of government responsibility towards citizens' safety and security. We feel that there is need for the government to examine the reason for the slide and take tangible and effective steps to arrest the dip.
We have, regrettably, noticed a tendency on the part of many high ups in the government to indulge in comparisons of the situation now with that of the time immediately after the 4-Party alliance had taken over. Such comparisons are odious since nobody should take comfort in the fact that there might have been fewer deaths or other forms of violence in a particular period compared to another. Why should bad acts be replicated, particularly when change is the catchword on which AL came to power?
Now that the Upazilla elections are over, and indeed the police had to be deployed thinly all over the country, a situation which the criminals might have exploited, there can be no excuse for not going after them and bringing them to book. We note that a special operation is underway in the capital which we feel should be expanded to include the entire country.
We would like to point to another cause of apprehension in the minds of the common man that stems from the news reports that many criminals and miscreants, who had taken shelter across the border during the emergency, are now feeling it expedient to resurface at home taking advantage of the return of a political government. Reportedly, a large number of these identify themselves with one political party or the other. It needs hardly be said that the administration should be absolutely non-partisan in going after the criminals, and in this regard we would like to recall oft-repeated comment of the minister and her deputy that criminals belong to no party.
There is another cause for worry that cannot be brushed aside which is the government's decision to withdraw cases instituted against the AL workers by the erstwhile BNP-Jamaat government, reportedly numbering nearly 100,000, on the grounds that these have been politically motivated. And there is also a talk of restarting cases in which final reports have been submitted. There may be merit in both the moves, but the government must deal with both in a manner so that no partisan motive can be imputed to its action.
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