Risks tourists may run in Dhaka

Dhaka has added yet another dubious sobriquet to its already infamy-laden epithets. The Forbes Adviser has found it to be the sixth riskiest city for tourists among the world's 60 cities it has considered on the basis of seven key metrics. These seven metrics---crime rates, violence, political instability, terrorist threats, health, natural disaster, digital security---have evidently been chosen in order to guide tourists intending to visit such cities. Tourists are warned of the danger they may encounter in some cities or advised to take life easy in others. Which cities knowledgeable tourists are likely to prefer for a visit need hardly any elaboration. There is no reason to think that amateur visitors and globe-trotters alone visit places, there are business tourists who travel to capitals and other cities for business purposes. When they know that a city is infamous for high crime, violence and political instability, they are unlikely to invest in such countries.

It is clear that Dhaka, which is the seventh worst liveable city according to the Economist Intellience Unit's (EIU's) Global Liveability Index for 2023 and also the one that remains the world's top polluted urban centre for days together, could fare even worse as a host to foreign tourists if the recent violence, arson and death over quota reform movement were taken into consideration. When the Forbes Adviser evaluated Dhaka's position, the country passed a relatively peaceful time. If a city proves dangerous to tourists, it is unlikely to be any better for the common people who have to come out on its streets for work and other businesses. If a brick comes flying to land on a pedestrian's head killing the person or the girder of an elevated expressway falls on a passing private car to take away lives of people inside, the city's hazardous status is pronounced loudly. The death of at least three children in their homes or on the roof of a building from stray bullets during the violent clashes between the law enforcement agencies and the quota demonstrators is a grim reminder of life's insecurity in this city.

It is the mindset that matters. When life is treated as something cheap and dispensable or human rights go unrecognised by people at the helm of affairs, law and order cannot be what it ideally should be. Yawning socio-economic disparities have created a super class of plutocracy which can ensure the security of its members either by state intelligence and law enforcement agencies or by private gunmen. The ordinary citizen find themselves at the mercy of musclemen, muggers, extortionists and robbers.

Apart from the law and order situation, people at times invite disasters because of their notorious habit of a casual approach to safety issues. Precarious scaffolds used for construction workers, a lack of required gears for safety tank cleaners, jam-packing vehicles and vessels, travel on rooftop of trains and buses ---the list is long. So the image created from all such affairs is hardly pleasant to the eyes of foreigners. The Forbes Adviser may not be fully aware of the hidden dangers of gaping manhole or drains and the protruding iron rods that can cause serious injuries or even death. People here are used to living with all such threats to life. But one thing goes to the country's credit---ordinary people here are incomparably friendly.