Editorial
Stop BCL Terrorism
We commend last Monday's police drive against party cadres on the Dhaka University campus. Quite naturally activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League were the target. It is now plain as a pikestaff that if any collective identity is to be singled out for actively contributing to the deterioration of law and order in the country - at least in view of incidents in the last six months - then it is Chhatra League, the student front of the ruling Awami League. From Dhaka University to Shahjalal University everywhere BCL has been in the thick of things.
But the place where monstrosity of the BCL cadres' oppression has perhaps crossed all limits of tolerance is in and around Dhaka College. With Eid approaching these people who have turned two college hostels into their lairs are making life miserable for the traders and business at the neighbourhood. The name of the BCL leader who reportedly enjoys tremendous clout with the authorities and his accomplices have come up in the press. We demand of the Home Minister to take initiative to have these anti-socials arrested before Eid. But for police to go the whole hog against the criminals, the party in power has to make an effectual, and not a rhetorical, stance against the criminals operating under the banner of BCL. None of these sporadic police swoops would show any result unless the party high command takes an inviolate decision of severing all links with student politics . At least this has to be made sure that there will be no fortresses within the party ranks that may stop the long arm of the law from reaching those perpetrating crimes by using the party name.
It ought to be remembered that these elements are not only fast turning into a curse on the civil society but they are also damaging Awami League's image eminently. Weapon brandishing, extortionist cadres cannot be the strength of any party.
If she has any care for her own image and prestige then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina should reckon that the seemingly uninterrupted reign of BCL tyranny is making a mockery of her call to the law enforcing agency for nabbing criminals irrespective of their party identity.
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