The death of a widow following inhuman torture in a village under Pirojpur, a coastal district, has sent shockwaves across the country. A mother of two, she saved Tk 35,000 by working as a domestic help. She lent the money to a neighbour and when asked to give the money back, the irate borrower, her husband and their relatives numbering eight to 10 mercilessly beat her up. She was dragged on to the Baleshwar River bank and her private part was savagely lacerated with a stick before pressing her down into water several times. Then she was left there to die. But the woman was rescued and taken to Pirojpur Sadar Hospital from where she was sent to Khulna Medical College and Hospital where she died on Monday.
It is a tragic saga of a society yet to treat women as human beings. In this case, the woman named Makuli Begum is vulnerable on several counts. First, she is a woman and without a husband. A Bangla contemporary report has it that a local influential man sent for both parties involved in the dispute on hearing the altercation. For her failure to attend the local 'salish' (arbitration), the local lord set her opponents at her to teach a lesson. The instigation was only too tempting for them.
If this is true, society's fabric really becomes brazenly exposed. The woman has defied a powerful man. Should this be enough cause for setting a few hounds in the shape of human beings at her and commit the mind-boggling savagery they did? If the report is true, two women pushed the stick through her private part to cause internal wound. All attempts by the physicians to stop bleeding failed leading to her death. Here the murderers were driven by a frenzy cannibals in Robinson Crusoe demonstrated.
So the local lordly man's could-not-care-less attitude towards the law of the land and the demonstration of extreme form of cruelty by a bunch of savages who sided with the defaulting borrowers highlight the deprivation and moral bankruptcy of a society. Respect for law is only conspicuous by its absence and some people are tempted to take law into their own hands, others give a damn to it when their interests are involved and still others feel frustrated knowing full well that there are people who are above law. If not applied even-handedly, law becomes a tool or instrument of torture at the hands of the powerful and the enforcement agencies.
This country once witnessed a series of incidents of public lynching, leading to deaths of robbers, muggers and other such criminals. At least this is how the deceased are portrayed. But in a number of cases, such claims have been contradicted rather convincingly. The attack on and death of a number of students on the bank of river Balu at Mirpur will continue to haunt the villagers who were responsible behind the gruesome murder. In some cases, people feel no qualms about exacting personal revenge by labelling one an anti-social goon or criminal. When extra-judicial killing gets the sanction from the state, others feel provoked to follow suit.
A civilised society does derive its strength from the fundamental principle that human life is sacrosanct and inviolable no matter if it concerns that of a man or woman and life's stations notwithstanding. Civilisation means attainment at a higher stage of mind where people try to avoid violence at all costs and settle disputes through negotiations. As against modernity which may indicate a higher level of scientific and technological advancement, civilisation stresses on moral high ground and cultural refinement. Savagery of the kind societies in different parts of the world witness ought to be foreign to a truly civilised society.
Because today's human civilisation is imperfect, there is need for the protection of human rights courtesy of a well framed legal system. Countries all across the globe have been trying to improve their legal provisions in order to ensure that no individual is wronged and the errant and culprits are meted out punishment. It is because of this, crimes have been rated on the basis of their degrees and intensities. So are the punishment awarded depending on the types of crimes.
Unfortunately, developments such as the one involving the widow in Pirojpur do not receive the importance they deserve. All because such individuals are treated as peripheral, only more so on account of a general amnesia on the part of society. Odds are stuck against the poor and more against the weaker sex belonging to this social segment. The Yasmin rape and murder seemed to have jolted the conscience of the nation at that time because it was perhaps the first such extensively reported case. Today, hordes of Yasmins are brutally tortured and murdered but the nation's conscience stays undisturbed or simply it has mortgaged its conscience to the devil.
This time the Pirojpur district unit of the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad formed a human chain in the town to protest against the murder and demand punishment of those responsible. More such protest rallies may be brought out but ultimately the focus will shift on a more pressing one because such incidents are recurring at an unacceptable rate. Court cases go on for years and in rare cases are criminals promptly delivered the dispensation of justice. This is one area that needs to be updated in order to fight injustice in society. The other area to be addressed is the influence of the powerful and the privileged, without elimination of which building a just society will remain a chimera.
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