Published in The Daily Independent, August 10, 2009
The State Minister for Home made a statement while opening the Sher-e-Bangla Police station recently that is surprising to say the least. He said that no one is safe in the country, whether walking on foot or in a car and that "we all are under the surveillance of the networks of criminals and religious extremists and this is the reality… no people, big or small, are beyond such networks." The Minister acknowledged a very bad law and order situation but blamed it upon the anti-Bangladesh forces of 1971 and criminals for the state of affairs.
The Minister was candid to say the least although he certainly over-exaggerated the case. Since the return of civilian rule following the December 29th elections, criminals who were forced to lie low have returned with vengeance to make up for their lost time and business during the two years of emergency. Hijacking and mugging are now routine affairs of life in Dhaka. The extortionists are also making up for lost time and their impatience is showing; businessmen are getting killed without being given a second chance to meet the demands of these criminals.
The public universities have been the first casualties signalling the deterioration of law and order. The student wing of the ruling party moved on the student wing of the opposition to gain control of the residential halls immediately after the AL government took office. They lost no time to start manipulating tenders and interfering in admission to extort money. Intra-party quarrel within the student wing of the ruling party worsened the environment in the universities that have also spread to the other educational institutions. The lawlessness in the educational institutions forced the Prime Minister to de-link her official position as the party chief in the party's student wing. Sadly, her action did not have the desired impact and conflict and criminal activities are far from being rooted out from the educational institutions. To compete with the ruling party's student wing, the BNP named a central committee of its student wing where middle aged non-students have been given key positions, signalling clearly their intention to match their opponents to vitiate the environment of the educational institutions.
In his emotional appeal, the Minister's heart was in the right place but not his head. He has correctly assessed the dangers of militancy from the criminals and religious extremities but his dire conclusions are grossly exaggerated because fear of the militants is not that serious yet to force people to stay home. Nevertheless their activities have increased beyond the tolerance of the public. However, in appealing to the people to be united for tackling militancy of the criminals, the Minister is knocking at the wrong door. The people are united as ever against militancy from criminals but they are frustrated that such militancy has become a feature in their lives because politicians patronise the criminals. The major parties are all equally guilty of allowing this nexus to grow in their respective parties. When one of these parties is in power, the criminals with links to them make lives of people hell while those supporting the opposition go on the run, usually crossing into India where they have a safe haven.
The Minister has also shown a misplaced sense of confidence on the law enforcement agencies by asking the people to support them against criminal militancy. It is general knowledge in the country and for good reasons that the law enforcement agencies are part of the problem with criminal militancy. The political party in power has always used these agencies to protect and sustain the nexus between politics and criminals. The law enforcement agencies on their part have used this interference as an excuse to maintain and sustain their own nexus with the criminals for their own ulterior benefits.
The Minister's fight against militancy, if he seriously means business, must start by making it a non-political issue. The law enforcement agencies must be given the task of apprehending criminals without any political interference. Sincerity in this context is of the essence for such a step will break the dangerous nexus between criminals and politics. It will also put the law enforcement agencies on the spot so that they can no longer make an excuse of political interference for their incapability in nabbing the criminals. Once this freedom is given to the law enforcement agencies, they can then be made to bear the responsibility for the rise of criminal activities or else face the music. This pinpointing responsibility should be an easy task once the nexus is broken because the country has an excellent network of police stations all over the country to tackle criminal militancy.
As for militancy growing in the educational institutions and out of it, the task is even easier. The government has to severe the umbilical cord between national politics and student politics to deal with it. The Prime Minister should complete the task that she has started when she disassociated herself from the student wing of her party. She should ask her political associates to do the same. Once this cord is disrupted, criminal activities inside our educational institutions would die naturally because students on their own cannot sustain breaking the law because they simply do not have that strength or capability. Once the ruling party takes these steps; the opposition will be forced to follow or face the law.
These steps will not definitely root out criminal militancy from the country. Our imperfect legal system will set free many of the criminals who would be nabbed by law enforcement agencies working without political interference. No society can achieve total freedom from criminal militancy and our imperfect legal system needs reform to tackle criminal militancy better. Nevertheless, once these steps are taken, the major source of criminal militancy arising out of the nexus between crime and politics would be thrust a major blow. Whatever criminal militancy would remain afterwards would be something that the people would be able to bear without losing sleep over it.
Religious militancy is a different issue although its potentials for damaging the country's fragile law and order situation are significant. In the last elections, the religious based parties have been dealt a major blow. The BNP has paid a heavy price for encouraging religious militancy when in power last time. In fact, it was the BNP's indulgence for political reasons that religious militancy gained grounds in Bangladesh. Once that patronage was gone, religious militancy has become less a factor in the context of the country's law and order. In fact, since the BNP left government, religious militancy has been talked about in the media a lot but there has not been any action by religious militants that would scare the daylight out of anyone. Although Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, there exists in the society a deep dislike against those who use Islam in politics and more so, for militancy that the law enforcement agencies could use to tackle religious militancy provided political considerations are left out of the equation.
The Minister has over-exaggerated the case on both criminal and religious militancy. His statement unfortunately has been covered outside Bangladesh where his views on religious militancy have caused interest. At least one stringer of a major international news media has been asked to provide more information on the Minister's concern about religious militancy. At a time when we need to project a good image abroad, we should be cautious in creating alarm on religious militancy.
Criminal militancy in Bangladesh can be resolved if the government is willing to call a spade a spade and not play politics with it. Religious militancy is the lesser of the two evils. It is criminal militancy that, if not tackled, could soon keep people from coming out of their houses not religious militancy and the Minister should keep this in mind in dealing with the deteriorating law and order situation in the country.
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