MEDIA outlets on Saturday reported that local Awami League leaders and activists assaulted the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Parshuram in Feni following a wrangle centering around the visit of Shipping Minister there. While, the UNO, Chief Administrative Officer of the Upazila, and local AL leaders and activists were waiting to welcome the Minister, District AL Vice-President Khairul Bashar Majumder Tapan and his followers tormented the UNO following a trivial matter. They beat him up severely in broad daylight, leaving him seriously injured. The UNO is now under medical care at the District Hospital. The incident is an unprecedented attack on Civil Administration and thus the government, by the ruling party men. Definitely, the ongoing impunity of the ruling party thugs and miscreants and apathy of Police and Administration have emboldened the AL to be audacious.
Later, the Shipping Minister, local AL lawmakers, Deputy Commissioner of the district and the Superintendent of Police visited the UNO at a hospital and assured him of taking actions against the culprits. Police arrested three AL men in connection with the incident but the prime accused Tapan is out of the net. We could not mark the incident an accident and misunderstanding between Civil Administration and ruling party men. When impunity becomes mainstream in any country the governance system collapses and a complete anarchy may ensue; we are undergoing this situation. There is no law except the ruling party men’s order and legal system and police department work according to AL men’s orders while bending the existing law, a party-archic situation.
The AL men, who beat up the UNO, thought that they were above the legal action and their whims were the all in all. While, immunity is obvious, laundering people’s rights or assaulting government officials and even declaring themselves feudal kings are easy. If the AL men behave in such an audacious manner with the Chief Upazila Administrator, how they treat ordinary people is a matter of anxiety.
Political party and government are two entities and should run separately. But in recent times, the duo have become amalgamated to such an extent that it is hard to find a distinction among these. The theoretically non-political and non-partisan civil service is equipped with the ruling party’s blessing men and ruling party men exercise the power of administration and work hand-to-hand with police in haunting and assaulting opposition men. The unruly attitude of the ruling men, even low profile workers, with the civil servants makes it that the administration is their subordinate.
The government is apathetic to the dignity and integrity of the civil service as most of them are recruited to serve the party policies that has degraded the dignity of the civil administration. If the government fails to alter such an anarchic situation, the laws, Constitution, legal system, judiciary and other ingredients of the modern state would be unnecessary and the country would enter a state of dysfunctional administration. The government should establish order in the administration and punish the culprit for assaulting the republic’s servant in Feni.
