The Signal from Aganagar
Medieval barbarity descended on Aganagar Saturday afternoon. Gunmen mowed down newly elected chairman of the newly created Aganagar union, Haji Tariqullah. In retaliation a frenzied mob led by the brother of the victim attacked the house of liberation war commander and AL leader Nurul Islam, drew him out, stabbed him and forcing the man into a gunny bag set it on fire. About thirty houses were ransacked. The whole area is still shrouded by a sense of panic.
It is an irony that the place is hardly ten minutes journey from downtown Dhaka - across the Buriganga and by countryboat ferry. The revolting proceedings of Saturday afternoon smacked of a blood feud in the making. Haji Tariqullah was purportedly the head of an infamous terrorist gang called Tariqa Bahini and has been implicated in numerous criminal cases including murder and has also served jail terms. It is likely that he was slain by some victims of his and his bahini's misdeeds. That no one from the area has come forward to file a case with the police about the mind-boggling killing of Nurul Islam, reportedly for fear of Tariqa retribution, speaks amply of the Aganagar area's unbroken subjection to terror over the years.
That police wouldn't even enter the scene, not to speak of engaging the Tariqa Bahini on rampage, till well into the night is another proof of the unacceptable law and order situation in Aganagar. It is highly likely that the half-baked and vulgar urban industrial and housing developments on the other side of the river have been accompanied by a more than equal rise in crime and criminals. The moral of the Keraniganj double murder terror is - the other side, from Barisal to Kaliganj, is no more sleepy villages and needs intensive policing. This alone cannot ensure the people of this other Dhaka security and a civilised life. The establishment of a municipality is overdue there. And unless a planned town development is effected there and soon, the whole area will rot into a bloated Aganagar.
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