Is confidence in law enforcement eroding?q
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Maswood Alam Khan
ONE without any political bias may laugh at the explanations of law enforcement agencies as to the mysterious disappearance of people, overzealous actions against political leaders, flouting the convention of remanding, rampant extrajudicial killings, bribing the law enforcers for switching crime to innocence and vice versa, double standards in awarding punishment to a group of people and absolving another group from all the sins and punishments, hesitance in taking actions against the groups having links with the powerful and obstinacy in discriminating against the groups who were once loyal to a party which is no more in power. More ludicrous is the way the law enforcers dismiss the suggestions that they were not behaving properly in dispensing justice.
People of late are feeling a growing sense of insecurity. People having no connection with high-ups are in a quandary. People are silent and dare not protest for fear of being remanded, tortured or killed. Even writers are afraid of writing the truth that may tarnish the image of people at the helm.
Is this lawlessness the price of democracy people had exercised in electing a set of leaders with an overwhelming majority of votes? Is the silence for fear of torture a sign of peace? Are all these dangerous examples to be mimicked by the next set of elected leaders? Are not we wasting our precious time in wreaking vengeance on each other that could otherwise have been utilised for constructive planning?
The power the leaders are now exercising is transient. History suggests that the misuse of power by the empowered may not backfire for a handful of the high-ups to be skidded out of power but penalise some people of lower strata, innocent or not, found loyal to a party previously in power.
When a man is in distress he cries for help from his neighbours. When a man is suppressed by a neighbour he solicits justice from a leader in the neighbourhood. When he does not find the leader dispensing justice he rushes to the police for relief. When he finds running to a police station is like jumping from the frying pan to fire he rushes to a court of law. When he finds no relief in the lower court he rushes to the Supreme Court. When he is dumfounded by a decision of the Supreme Court he rushes to the press club to steam out his frustrations. And when he finds people in the press club divided into two groups -- one loyal to the government and the other loyal to the opposition -- he is left with a double-edged sword, not knowing whether to go to the party in power for getting instant relief only to be defeated when the party would lose power or to go to the party in the opposition in the hope of getting a semblance of justice in the future when the party would go to power -- but to lose again with the changes in the fortune of the party.
Is this helplessness of the man drowning in our social quagmire the price of liberty our freedom fighters sacrificed their lives for? Is it not high time we redefined democracy, a democracy that would rid the society of all these injustices, guard the weak from the wrath of the strong and guarantee peace for all and sundry?
Is not it time for the leaders in power to take a pause and reflect in the mirror to ask themselves: "Are we driving some fanatic youths to go underground as they are not being allowed to voice their protest against suppression in public? Are we creating a fertile ground in Bangladesh for extremists to recruit jihadists from those frustrated youths to carry out suicide missions the way the extremists are detonating car bombs in Pakistan and Afghanistan?"
The writer can be reached at e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com
ONE without any political bias may laugh at the explanations of law enforcement agencies as to the mysterious disappearance of people, overzealous actions against political leaders, flouting the convention of remanding, rampant extrajudicial killings, bribing the law enforcers for switching crime to innocence and vice versa, double standards in awarding punishment to a group of people and absolving another group from all the sins and punishments, hesitance in taking actions against the groups having links with the powerful and obstinacy in discriminating against the groups who were once loyal to a party which is no more in power. More ludicrous is the way the law enforcers dismiss the suggestions that they were not behaving properly in dispensing justice.
People of late are feeling a growing sense of insecurity. People having no connection with high-ups are in a quandary. People are silent and dare not protest for fear of being remanded, tortured or killed. Even writers are afraid of writing the truth that may tarnish the image of people at the helm.
Is this lawlessness the price of democracy people had exercised in electing a set of leaders with an overwhelming majority of votes? Is the silence for fear of torture a sign of peace? Are all these dangerous examples to be mimicked by the next set of elected leaders? Are not we wasting our precious time in wreaking vengeance on each other that could otherwise have been utilised for constructive planning?
The power the leaders are now exercising is transient. History suggests that the misuse of power by the empowered may not backfire for a handful of the high-ups to be skidded out of power but penalise some people of lower strata, innocent or not, found loyal to a party previously in power.
When a man is in distress he cries for help from his neighbours. When a man is suppressed by a neighbour he solicits justice from a leader in the neighbourhood. When he does not find the leader dispensing justice he rushes to the police for relief. When he finds running to a police station is like jumping from the frying pan to fire he rushes to a court of law. When he finds no relief in the lower court he rushes to the Supreme Court. When he is dumfounded by a decision of the Supreme Court he rushes to the press club to steam out his frustrations. And when he finds people in the press club divided into two groups -- one loyal to the government and the other loyal to the opposition -- he is left with a double-edged sword, not knowing whether to go to the party in power for getting instant relief only to be defeated when the party would lose power or to go to the party in the opposition in the hope of getting a semblance of justice in the future when the party would go to power -- but to lose again with the changes in the fortune of the party.
Is this helplessness of the man drowning in our social quagmire the price of liberty our freedom fighters sacrificed their lives for? Is it not high time we redefined democracy, a democracy that would rid the society of all these injustices, guard the weak from the wrath of the strong and guarantee peace for all and sundry?
Is not it time for the leaders in power to take a pause and reflect in the mirror to ask themselves: "Are we driving some fanatic youths to go underground as they are not being allowed to voice their protest against suppression in public? Are we creating a fertile ground in Bangladesh for extremists to recruit jihadists from those frustrated youths to carry out suicide missions the way the extremists are detonating car bombs in Pakistan and Afghanistan?"
The writer can be reached at e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com