PANIC grips two Pabna villages as nine villagers went missing in less than five weeks and still remained without trace. People claiming to be members of law enforcement agencies picked up them though the law enforcers have denied the claim. The successive disappearance came into the light on May 11 when five people, including three brothers, were picked up from the villages. Armed group accompanied by 10-12 locals took them from their village homes in Ullapara Upazila in the early hours of the day. They claimed as RAB men but the force’s Pabna camp dismissed such claims.
What appears to be noticeable is that there is a similarity in all abduction cases like the attacks by so-called Islamist terrorists who have also their own format of attacks and style of killings. We are afraid whether innocent people are increasingly facing a highly terrible situation in which armed groups believing in hostile politics and ideologies are targeting people they believe inimical to them.
But as far as public safety is concerned, the government — whoever be in power has the responsibility to give protection to people and rescue those who are missing. But neither the government is speaking about these abductions nor taking steps to find them out to make many wonder why it remains silent all about it. It is the duty of the government to identify who those people are raiding people’s home and taking them at mid-night passing blame on police and RAB who are organized force of the state and duty bound to give protection to people.
We equally demand that identity of the Islamist terrorists must be made clear and the government must work at the same time to improve the political situation to put an end to criminalization of the society.
The latest spate of abductions like the killing of free thinkers has sent the wave of panic in Pabna villages and also all over the country as to who will give protection to people from abductions, killings and from such other targeted raids.
We are against all killings and demand that the government must ensure the right to life and property of all people. Report said Islamist terrorists have killed 12 people from early this year and the number of abduction has shot up to nine in one case alone. A nightmare is now taking over the entire nation breaking the people’s dream of a peaceful land where they would live in safety. The liberation of the country is losing meaning if people fall victim to assassins’ hands in the liberated country. We call upon the government to end the spate of killings and abductions to give peace to the nation.
