Meanwhile the Anti-Corruption Commission has sought bank statements and transaction records of the accounts frozen recently by the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) during the ongoing anti-corruption drive. The commission has so far filed nine cases against some former ruling Awami League leaders, businessmen and their relatives. In the cases, the anti-graft body took BFIU’s information into consideration.
People like G K Shamim who made a fortune by “illegally” winning government contracts reportedly by introducing himself as Narayanganj Awami League vice president and Jubo League central committee’s cooperatives affairs secretary, and Ismail Hossain Samrat, the so-called casino king of Dhaka, were two of the many ruling party operatives whose luck with the law had run out.
Leaving aside the questions of why the police or other members of the security forces didn’t grab them while they had been busy making ill gotten gains in the last decade, or why it took directives from the PM personally to get them arrested, the nation would now want to know how justice should be served to them.
We think that justice should be done speedily — as in the case of the Nusrat murder, when all the accused were promptly arrested and sentenced to death. A huge number of cases can be filed against the two individuals who have been named above.
For example Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat used to lead a large gang whose members would often torture those who refused to pay extortion money or opposed him. For this, the gang resorted to electric shocks. Samrat amassed a huge amount of money through illegal casino business, tender grabbing and extortion. Similarly G K Shamim used to indulge in tender manipulation paying bribes, and extortion.
But the size and scale of the extortion — the money collected from these two individuals ammounting to billions of takas – give one some idea about the huge revenues they must have earned through the illegal businesses and casinos. But these are just the tip of the iceberg, as narcotics, illegal animal hides, yaba, foreign currency, and guns were also in their possession. For all of these cases the government can keep them in bars for the rest of their earthly lives, or sentence them to be hanged.
This culture of political ‘boro bhais’ and tender manipulation and extortion must be stopped forever. Extortion hits the lower income classes the most — those who most deserve our protection, like the hawkers on the footpaths who are the most economically deprived people, or the ricksha-pullers who try hard to maintain an honest living. It is neither right nor fair that they pay their money with their blood and sweat for people like Samrat to use it on casinos’ gambling. The very culture of impunity which equates political power and clout with extortion must end.
In the absence of action against the giant corrupt ones people are yet to be convinced that those who have been arrested for comparatively small corruptions will go through trial and punishment. So it is essential to arrange speedy trial of those who have been accused of sensational corruption.
The truth is the money plundered under political protection as the basis of torture, extortion, disappearance and election robbery. So it is vitally important that those who are arrested for corruption allegations must be put on trial without delay for ensuring punishment. The speedy trial of Nusrat’s murder is the right example to follow in the corruption cases initiated in a situation unbelievable.
Those who have been arrested were holding influential positions in the party politics of the government. It is reasonable for the general public to be suspicious about the end – that means the result of the corruption cases against them. The methods used for corruption like torture, tender snatching business in respect of big projects etc are politically approved by the party politics of the government.
The government’s law enforcing agencies knew about the widespread practice of their corruption but had to remain helpless.
It is a shame in a free country that the government is to be feared for all wrongs against people. This is not the image of a free people.
