Kill, but don't torture
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Maswood Alam Khan
The footages and the stories about the accused former home minister Lutfozzaman Babar recently aired by all the TV channels and printed on the front pages of almost all the newspapers with a picture of the accused seated on a plastic chair being lifted by police personnel from a prison van to a courtroom in Dhaka have made all the viewers and readers muse over what unthinkable can happen to a person's life when as a powerless man he has to fight a legal battle in Bangladesh.
Every single viewer and reader must have asked himself: "Did Babar ever think, when he used to serve as the most powerful state minister of home, that his junior most colleagues would one day have to lift him seated on a chair as he would have been too weak to stand and walk only a few yards? Will a sitting home minister ever face the same fate for a similar crime? Or, does Babar now think it is only a matter of time he will be set free, regain his power and will take revenge upon those who are now torturing him?"
There is a possibility that he may be awarded capital punishment if the charges brought against him are proven true beyond any shade of doubt. On that day of judgment made by a court of law many people will perhaps rejoice the punishment and may take a lesson that 'a sin committed does not spare even a VIP like a former home minister'---though tragically in Bangladesh a sin committed always spares a running home minister.
One of the great blunders the political party of our previous government did commit was giving nomination to a person like Babar for contesting in parliamentary election and later choosing him to hold a powerful position in a sensitive ministry like that of home, knowing full well that his tarnished background was recorded in the books of crimes.
But, after all, our people once did cast their votes to elect Mr. Babar as an honorable lawmaker. So, we should not dishonor the judgment of the electorate. Insulting or torturing an elected lawmaker, his tarnished background notwithstanding, is tantamount to affronting the parliament. Unless and until Mr. Babar is finally awarded punishment by the highest court of law he must be honored like a VIP a former lawmaker deserves.
There is no guarantee that any of our elected members of the present or the future parliament, in spite of his complete innocence, will not be accused on a political or a personal vendetta with a change in political scenario. So, a strict law on how a former, an incumbent or a future Member of Parliament should be treated before and after his trials in any court of law should be passed.
Frankly speaking, I was personally shocked to view the pitiable condition of Mr. Babar, a former member of our parliament. I don't know what disease Babar has now been suffering from or why he was too weak even to walk.
Some people may term his physical frailty as his pretentious ploy to elicit mercy from the judge of the court.
But, some observers are apprehending that he was perhaps severely tortured physically and mentally when he was being held on remand. And many were surprised when one judge of the High Court allowed police to interrogate Babar at the jail gate in response to an appeal by his lawyers on the ground that Babar who is terribly sick could be physically tortured if he is sent to police custody, while another senior judge of the Supreme Court gave a green signal for police to interrogate Babar outside of the jail!
God or any law of any land has not given a right to a man or a woman to torture an animal, let alone a human being. It is only the sadists who relish hearing that a pickpocket has been beaten to death or a political goon is being tortured to confess a crime.
I would be grossly misunderstood if a reader takes my words against torture as words of my indirect sympathy for Babar who is a prime suspect in some gruesome murder cases. What I like to mean is I, like many neutral observers, vehemently oppose any kind of torture on any kind of living being, no matter the living body is a cow, a tree, a dacoit, a murderer, or a political ruffian.
Maybe I am too weak at heart to withstand pains. On all the occasions of Eid-ul-Azha, since my childhood, I have been shying away from the spots where sacrificial cows or goats are slaughtered. I can't stand the cruelty of shaving and chiseling the barks and trunks of date and rubber plants to extract sugary and rubbery juices, when ingredients other than date juice can sweeten drinks and foods and synthetic materials other than rubber can be used to manufacture tyres and tubes.
"Torture is many times worse than death", a precious lesson I had learnt 37 years back from a conversation between two Dhakaiya (ancestrally original inhabitants of old Dhaka city) men inside a busy restaurant in Gandaria near 'Kather Pool' where usually the plumbers, masons, and other day laborers used to throng in the evening to take snacks and tea amidst uproarious chit-chatting accompanied by old Hindi songs being played by a phonograph and blared in the highest imaginable volume from crackly sound boxes.
I had a peculiar hobby of taking tea in cafes where I could eavesdrop conversations I was not used to in my home or in my school. One evening as I was sipping tea inside the café in Gandaria I overheard a Dhakaiya retorting his friend, another Dhakaiya: "Abey Halai!
Halaar Tor Bourey Monay Koshto Desch Kellay? Gola Teppya Mairaa Faalbaar Parasch Na? Paach Miniter Maamla…Khotom…Jodi Mairaa Falaasch! Aaar Monay Koshto Dibi, Halaarpu, Tor Bou Panchash Bosor Dhoira Dapaibau! Koonta Baala?" (Buddy! Why do you torture your wife mentally? Can't you gag her to death? It's just a matter of five minutes and then it's over, if you kill her, while your wife will go on suffering in mental pains for long fifty years if you injure her soul. Now tell me, which one is better: killing or torturing?)
Extra judicial killing through so-called cross firings by RAB, to my opinion, is far better than extra judicial torturing in secret cells by our intelligence people. A quick death to a confirmed criminal is far rewarding to the suspect or the victim than a prolonged wait in the cobwebs of our judiciary system.
"Inferno", a work of classic literature by Dante, tells the story of a man who finds himself sent to hell. His only hope to escape this fate is to descend into the bowels of hell, to pass through the numerous levels, each progressively worse than the last, and only by surviving this journey might he have the hope of being free from condemnation.
Those suspects who are undergoing unending tortures and those convicts who are consigned to "death row" for years together are neither allowed to live nor to die but only exist in a state of limbo, struggling not only in an inherently hostile environment but also in the seemingly elusive hope of "justice" when even death itself becomes seen as acceptable means of escape from the eternal torment of such never ending uncertainty.
Death or killing is natural and humane, while torture, both physical and mental, is inhuman and unnatural.
Nature has taught the tiger to kill its prey as quickly as possible and human civilization has taught us to kill a victim after a prolonged period of deprivation and torture. Animals living in the jungles are luckier than humans living in the towns as regards to sufferings before inevitable deaths. An animal does not know when it will die, while a human suffering from cancer or living in a condemned cell knows his days are numbered but cannot invite a quick death to be relieved from pains.
The way the police in our country at times arrests people en masse in a fit of madness and later tortures them to extract words of confession is simply medieval and barbaric. While there are many modern and electronic devices available that can be used to read waves of human mind and detect lies, there is no need to inflict mental or physical tortures on the suspects. The effect of torture theoretically enables the torturer to obtain whatever he wants from the victim because the victim will tell the torturer anything to end his ordeal. Can information obtained from a suspect under this type of duress be trustworthy?
The mental pain, an inseparable part of our practice of punishing suspects by tortures, exacts a frightful toll on the victim during the long wait between the trial period and the imposition of sentence. Shouldn't one accused deserve relief in punishment or parole when the judge knows that the accused was tortured during a long period of trial?
Of late, many observers have started doubting whether our judiciary is at all independent because judgments pronounced by the same courts of law seem varying with the political pendulum swinging left and right and we are not sure about who is really innocent and who is truly guilty. We have but to believe what we are spoon-fed by our electronic and print media. With the pendulum of politics never ceasing to swing, the starkest truth and the truest justice in Bangladesh, as usual, will always remain elusive far from our view, reach or realization.
The writer can be reached at
e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com
The footages and the stories about the accused former home minister Lutfozzaman Babar recently aired by all the TV channels and printed on the front pages of almost all the newspapers with a picture of the accused seated on a plastic chair being lifted by police personnel from a prison van to a courtroom in Dhaka have made all the viewers and readers muse over what unthinkable can happen to a person's life when as a powerless man he has to fight a legal battle in Bangladesh.
Every single viewer and reader must have asked himself: "Did Babar ever think, when he used to serve as the most powerful state minister of home, that his junior most colleagues would one day have to lift him seated on a chair as he would have been too weak to stand and walk only a few yards? Will a sitting home minister ever face the same fate for a similar crime? Or, does Babar now think it is only a matter of time he will be set free, regain his power and will take revenge upon those who are now torturing him?"
There is a possibility that he may be awarded capital punishment if the charges brought against him are proven true beyond any shade of doubt. On that day of judgment made by a court of law many people will perhaps rejoice the punishment and may take a lesson that 'a sin committed does not spare even a VIP like a former home minister'---though tragically in Bangladesh a sin committed always spares a running home minister.
One of the great blunders the political party of our previous government did commit was giving nomination to a person like Babar for contesting in parliamentary election and later choosing him to hold a powerful position in a sensitive ministry like that of home, knowing full well that his tarnished background was recorded in the books of crimes.
But, after all, our people once did cast their votes to elect Mr. Babar as an honorable lawmaker. So, we should not dishonor the judgment of the electorate. Insulting or torturing an elected lawmaker, his tarnished background notwithstanding, is tantamount to affronting the parliament. Unless and until Mr. Babar is finally awarded punishment by the highest court of law he must be honored like a VIP a former lawmaker deserves.
There is no guarantee that any of our elected members of the present or the future parliament, in spite of his complete innocence, will not be accused on a political or a personal vendetta with a change in political scenario. So, a strict law on how a former, an incumbent or a future Member of Parliament should be treated before and after his trials in any court of law should be passed.
Frankly speaking, I was personally shocked to view the pitiable condition of Mr. Babar, a former member of our parliament. I don't know what disease Babar has now been suffering from or why he was too weak even to walk.
Some people may term his physical frailty as his pretentious ploy to elicit mercy from the judge of the court.
But, some observers are apprehending that he was perhaps severely tortured physically and mentally when he was being held on remand. And many were surprised when one judge of the High Court allowed police to interrogate Babar at the jail gate in response to an appeal by his lawyers on the ground that Babar who is terribly sick could be physically tortured if he is sent to police custody, while another senior judge of the Supreme Court gave a green signal for police to interrogate Babar outside of the jail!
God or any law of any land has not given a right to a man or a woman to torture an animal, let alone a human being. It is only the sadists who relish hearing that a pickpocket has been beaten to death or a political goon is being tortured to confess a crime.
I would be grossly misunderstood if a reader takes my words against torture as words of my indirect sympathy for Babar who is a prime suspect in some gruesome murder cases. What I like to mean is I, like many neutral observers, vehemently oppose any kind of torture on any kind of living being, no matter the living body is a cow, a tree, a dacoit, a murderer, or a political ruffian.
Maybe I am too weak at heart to withstand pains. On all the occasions of Eid-ul-Azha, since my childhood, I have been shying away from the spots where sacrificial cows or goats are slaughtered. I can't stand the cruelty of shaving and chiseling the barks and trunks of date and rubber plants to extract sugary and rubbery juices, when ingredients other than date juice can sweeten drinks and foods and synthetic materials other than rubber can be used to manufacture tyres and tubes.
"Torture is many times worse than death", a precious lesson I had learnt 37 years back from a conversation between two Dhakaiya (ancestrally original inhabitants of old Dhaka city) men inside a busy restaurant in Gandaria near 'Kather Pool' where usually the plumbers, masons, and other day laborers used to throng in the evening to take snacks and tea amidst uproarious chit-chatting accompanied by old Hindi songs being played by a phonograph and blared in the highest imaginable volume from crackly sound boxes.
I had a peculiar hobby of taking tea in cafes where I could eavesdrop conversations I was not used to in my home or in my school. One evening as I was sipping tea inside the café in Gandaria I overheard a Dhakaiya retorting his friend, another Dhakaiya: "Abey Halai!
Halaar Tor Bourey Monay Koshto Desch Kellay? Gola Teppya Mairaa Faalbaar Parasch Na? Paach Miniter Maamla…Khotom…Jodi Mairaa Falaasch! Aaar Monay Koshto Dibi, Halaarpu, Tor Bou Panchash Bosor Dhoira Dapaibau! Koonta Baala?" (Buddy! Why do you torture your wife mentally? Can't you gag her to death? It's just a matter of five minutes and then it's over, if you kill her, while your wife will go on suffering in mental pains for long fifty years if you injure her soul. Now tell me, which one is better: killing or torturing?)
Extra judicial killing through so-called cross firings by RAB, to my opinion, is far better than extra judicial torturing in secret cells by our intelligence people. A quick death to a confirmed criminal is far rewarding to the suspect or the victim than a prolonged wait in the cobwebs of our judiciary system.
"Inferno", a work of classic literature by Dante, tells the story of a man who finds himself sent to hell. His only hope to escape this fate is to descend into the bowels of hell, to pass through the numerous levels, each progressively worse than the last, and only by surviving this journey might he have the hope of being free from condemnation.
Those suspects who are undergoing unending tortures and those convicts who are consigned to "death row" for years together are neither allowed to live nor to die but only exist in a state of limbo, struggling not only in an inherently hostile environment but also in the seemingly elusive hope of "justice" when even death itself becomes seen as acceptable means of escape from the eternal torment of such never ending uncertainty.
Death or killing is natural and humane, while torture, both physical and mental, is inhuman and unnatural.
Nature has taught the tiger to kill its prey as quickly as possible and human civilization has taught us to kill a victim after a prolonged period of deprivation and torture. Animals living in the jungles are luckier than humans living in the towns as regards to sufferings before inevitable deaths. An animal does not know when it will die, while a human suffering from cancer or living in a condemned cell knows his days are numbered but cannot invite a quick death to be relieved from pains.
The way the police in our country at times arrests people en masse in a fit of madness and later tortures them to extract words of confession is simply medieval and barbaric. While there are many modern and electronic devices available that can be used to read waves of human mind and detect lies, there is no need to inflict mental or physical tortures on the suspects. The effect of torture theoretically enables the torturer to obtain whatever he wants from the victim because the victim will tell the torturer anything to end his ordeal. Can information obtained from a suspect under this type of duress be trustworthy?
The mental pain, an inseparable part of our practice of punishing suspects by tortures, exacts a frightful toll on the victim during the long wait between the trial period and the imposition of sentence. Shouldn't one accused deserve relief in punishment or parole when the judge knows that the accused was tortured during a long period of trial?
Of late, many observers have started doubting whether our judiciary is at all independent because judgments pronounced by the same courts of law seem varying with the political pendulum swinging left and right and we are not sure about who is really innocent and who is truly guilty. We have but to believe what we are spoon-fed by our electronic and print media. With the pendulum of politics never ceasing to swing, the starkest truth and the truest justice in Bangladesh, as usual, will always remain elusive far from our view, reach or realization.
The writer can be reached at
e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com