Expose the Men Behind
Neither the adversity of nature nor the spirit of continence of the holy month seems to have any effect on the orgy of violence across the country. After Agagnagar the report of violent death comes from Pahartoli of Chittagong where three people reportedly died from bullet wounds in a clash with police over an eviction drive of illegal occupants.
Bangladesh is an overpopulated country and land hunger is a fairly natural instinct here but the problem is that it comes to serve the unscrupulous commercial interest of a group of powerful and hardened criminals. The real men behind illegal occupation are all influential people with tremendous political clout. What they do by capitalising on human miseries and necessity is unscrupulous business - a business that is only filling their pockets and robbing the country. The government is cheated in more than one way. Most of the illegally occupied ghettoes have unauthorised electric and water supply connections leading to a huge pilferage of public resources. Every time a tough legal action gets underway only the underprivileged helpless people whom they use as pawns die or suffer, the 'bosses' staying out of harm's way comfortably. These elusive evil clique has to be brought to light and it is understood the government of the day will have to muster great deal of courage, honesty and political will to do that.
As a paper The Daily Star supports the drive against illegal occupation. We support it because despite its obvious human face illegal occupancy of land and dwelling places is fast becoming a widespread criminal phenomenon. It holds serious threat to law and order and society in general. But we want it to be done in a humanised manner . In order to stop the recurrence of these unfortunate incidents of bloodshed the authorities need to take up the issue of illegal occupation more seriously and professionally.
At the moment there is serious coordinational flaw plaguing all the government agencies in this respect. They need to forge a professional unity among themselves otherwise only Jamal, Ashraf and Waliullahs will die and illegal occupation will live as a social scourge.
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