& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Free fall of law, order mocks govt measures

Zayadul Ahsan
Crime waves continue to strike terror into people despite a range of government steps to check the slide in lawand order.
Hideous killings, robberies, arson attacks, rapes, outlaw and extremist violence, abductions and a set of other crimes are rising to new highs, making speedy trial law, Operation Clean Heart, Operation Spider-web, a combing operation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Rapid Action Team in Dhaka sub-
jects of parody.
Speedy trial tribunals have sentenced over 300 people to death, the anti-crime Operation Clean Heart by joint forces including army saw deaths of over 50 suspects and Operation Spider-web netted scores in the restive southwest, but little changed for better.
Unprecedented incidents of arms-runningcame to light last year when police luckily recovered 100,000 bullets and about 200 kilograms of ammunition in a single case in Bogra. Police and army have
recovered unbelievable caches of arms an d ammunition this year.
But the killing of an officer-in-charge (OC) of police in Rajbari and scores of police casualties in the southwest have eroded the confidence of police, who go to patrol the streets under the shadow of ambushes.
Improvement in law and order dominated the election plank of the four-party alliance government, but the home ministry’s performance two and a half vears into the coalition rule is a travesty of the pledge, as criminals often outwit the police, using crafty innovations.
Amid the 'free fall of law and order' the BNP-led coalition government has freed nearly 70,000 people accused in criminal cases citing that they were subjected to harassment under the past Awami League government.
Criminologists believe their release fuelled the crime trend.
The home ministry on December 31 said law and order showed sustained improvement in the past two years. The press that covers only a faction of crime incidents across Bangladesh paints a grim picture, though.
According to press reports, about 4,500 people were killed in 2003, up from 4,000 a year ago. Surveys by different human-rights groups sup-portthe reports.
Of the bloodshed, the killing of popular Khulna city Awami League president Monzurul Imam on August 25 shocked the nation. Bomb attack on the veteran political leader in front of his house also killed Advocate Bijan Bihari and rickshawpuller Ali Akbar.
On June 7, former lawmaker Momtajuddin Ahmed was knifed to death in Natore.
In the capital's Monipuripara, a gang gunned down Masudur Rahman, the chief of a private securityservice provider in December.
In the same month, criminals killed Fakhruddin and his seven-year-old son Babu in Pallabi.
On September 19, Javed was killed inside a bank in old Dhaka and on August 1, Mir Hossain, manager of a residential hotel in Moghbazar, was killed in his bedroom.
On July 24, Chittagong BNP leader and magnate Jamal Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury was kidnapped. No-one knows his fate, despite repeated government commitments to free him.
The home minister on several occasions hinted at his imminent rescue raising the hopes of his shock-still family, but the moment is yet to come.
In the same city the next month, the body of abducted shipping magnate Rezaur Rahman Zakir was retrieved from roadside.
During the Eid-ul-Azha vacation last week, businessman Nasiruddin bought his freedom in Chittagong, dubbed as the haven of kidnappers, paying a ransom of Tk 10 lakh.
Another businessman Hasan Mahbub Bablu was kidnapped in
Bandarban within a couple of days when the abductors demanded Tk 2 crore in ransom.
Journalists in the 'wild southwest', ravaged by so-called leftist outlaw violence, are spending sleepless nights in the wake of the killing of prominent journalist Manik Chandra Saha in front of Khulna Press Club in a daylight bomb attack and threats on the lives of 11 others.
Ten journalists of Rajshahi are also haunted by the spectre of fatal attacks after the received death threats recently.
The grisly incineration of 11 members of a minority family in Banshkhali, Chittagong on November 19 sent chills across Bangladesh.
Earlier on May 8, criminals in a savage arson attack incinerated a woman, her daughter and another family member, conjuring up the use of medieval bestiality in crimes.
On May 10, three members of a family were burnt to death in Bagerhat and on November 21, a gang attempted to incinerate nine of a family in Jhalakathi.
Another gang killed three people, flayed their skins and sank the trawler they were travelling by in the Meghna river in Bhola's Monpura on September 13.
On October 19, police retrieved 18 pieces of a body stuffed into refrigerator shelves in Moghbazar.
Planned killings of law enforcers are also on the rise. During the Eid-ul-Azha vacation, the operatives of a gang called out Mizanur Rahman, OC of Pangsha Police Station, before killing him.
Last year, two detective agents on a drive to arrest offenders were killed in Malibagh and another detective police of Keraniganj was killed in December when he was trying to hunt down criminals.
In Bagerhat and Khulna, at the heart of outlaw violence, and in Savar, Brahmanbaria, assailants killed over 15 policemen.
In another incident in Sirajganj, blamed on underground operatives, four policemen were killed and their houses looted.
During the Eid-ul-Azha vacation, criminals robbed Tk 5.5 crore in gold and cash from Karnaphuli Garden City market.
The use of violence to rob cattle hide raged in Dhaka and elsewhere during the Eid.
People's distrust of law enforcers triggered the glaring examples of when raging mobs took law into their own hands and killed 39 alleged forest band its in Noakhali shoals.
Locals allege that a ruling BNP legislator instigated them to engage in the massacre of bandits who established a reign of terror in the seaboard district.
According to human rights organisation Odhikar, 49 political killings took place in January this year, when 77 more were injured and five abducted.
Thirty-five children were killed, 23 raped, 18 kidnapped, seven burnt in acid attacks in the month.
And in the last year, 4,500 people were killed, 973 raped, 800 women and children repressed, and 3,200 cases of robbery, 900 of extortion and 1,200 of mugging took place.
The figures went up from 3,800 killings, 900 rapes, 600 incidents of women and children repression, 2,300 of robbery, 550 extortion and 1,200 mugging in 2002.