Mohd Siddiqur Rahman :
We are deeply shocked to have noticed the news of deadly scuffle and killing one another that continued to capture the headlines of the leading dailies of Bangladesh in the recent period raising great concern of all concerned including the immigrants who left their beloved land, friends and relatives behind and always feel the pulse-beat with their motherland by instinct. We all are happy at the progress of the country achieved during the time past as of its inception but could not be happy at the gradual moral degradation remarkably marked at different tiers of the society. Everybody wonder when brutal happenings and disorderly affair across the land will be over. What has been experienced and knowledged so far is too long to describe in one write up. So attempts are being made to present the occurrences in precise manner.
Devilish barbarities like child killing, rape, violent assault to woman and children, mother’s suicide after killing her son, husband’s suicide after killing wife, committing suicide of all members of the family, receiving bullet into the womb of mother, mass-rape in brutal style, rejoicing over barbaric killing, burning the bus-passengers to death, termination of husband’s life over extra-marital affairs of wife, torturing the dissenting group without difficulty, extorting vulnerable class, killing one another over establishing supremacy and distribution of toll, illegal acquisition of properties, roaming with lethal weapons with immunity, snatching the criminal from the custody of police and many more occurrences beyond knowledge. Extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances are also to be mentioned.
Malicious, barbarous, brutal, ferocious and terrible acts have already reached it’s highest peak. In the past, we heard the news of mass-rape in India which was an unfamiliar word to us, now it is no longer unfamiliar. Some perverted men have had it happen in Bangladesh and expressing delight over it. What a barbarous it is ? In Rupgonj, Dhaka a criminal after killing a child, had his body burnt with cigarettes and then threw him into water. Child killing has been opened as another dimension of torture and added to the existing savage activities. On July, 8 in Sylhet, a 13 year old boy Rajan was beaten by metal rod to death on flimsy accusation of stealing a Rickshaw-van. Torturous scene was videoed and uploaded to social networking site unlike Biswanath of old Dhaka. Again in Khulna, a boy named Rakib, 13, was on employee of a garage owner – Sharif. Subjected to torture, Rakib left the job and started working at another garage, much to the annoyance of Sharif. As reported, Sharif called and stripped the boy naked, pushed the mechanical tire pumper into his rectum and forced air into the body. Rakib died on way to a hospital. His intestines were torn apart and lungs burst by the abnormally high pressure of air that filled his body. He died from multiple organ failure. In Barguna, a local person struck eyes of Rabiul Awal, 11, to death on the charge of stealing fish. In Magura, a mother with a baby in the womb received bullet injury during clash between two groups, mother survived the incident with great affliction.
As informed by Bangladesh Child Right Forum, 968 children have been tortured to death during the last three and a half years and in 2014 , the rate of child killing was about 61 per cent more compared to the previous year and brutality along with killing has been on increase this year. Statistics of killing of child as revealed in the dailies are as follows : 209 in 2012, 218 in 2013 and 350 in 2014. In the current year in 7 months, 191 children have already been killed to utter dismay and rage of the public.
There might have been more cases not possible to be known excepting those have been reported in the mass media. Relatives of children expressed great concern over the statistics of murder, oppression and rape to the children. Association of women of lawyers, Bangladesh reported that 63 children have been sexually harassed and 322 forced to sexual intercourse. Professor Tajul Islam of National Mental Health Institute opined that occurrences of child oppression could be attributed to the restiveness of social politics. Further he said, absence of social justice and presence of evil powerful persons at different levels from top to bottom should be held responsible for such cruel and barbaric occurrences. It is recommended that mass-media bring consciously all merciless happenings to light for correct assessment and actions. Conscious people in the society along with government should raise social resistance against the criminals and put pressure to the judiciary for speedy disposal of the cases filed against them.
Love and affection, kindness, tolerance, justice, honesty, devotion and humanity have been assumed to be missing gradually. Are we losing the sense of human values and returning to the medieval age? Mental-world, thought-wave and idealism seems to be disappearing with a challenge to the human civilization. Humanity, goodness and moral values have been subjected to extinction allowing easy excess to hypocrisy, distortion, falsehood, bribe, shrewdness and many other deceptions. Talking lies once and again to establish lies is least bothered. Various corruptions and malpractices have penetrated into all level of society and the state at large in pervasive and ominous form in default of rule of law.
Presently, there are 30 lac including women and children related cases remain pending in the process of trials as reported by Law Commission. This figure continues to increase daily. Judiciary assigned to establish justice to the people could make all out efforts to expedite the process of trials without any prejudice. Administration should focus on the burning issues on priority basis and engage all it’s forces determinedly to arrest the situation.
In conclusion, we, the Bangladeshi immigrants, on behalf of our country people, urge all concerned, our intellectuals, civil society, social scientists, journalists, politicians, lawmakers, experts and writers to come forward with their valuable suggestions and actions in order to get the country emancipated from this awful position .
(Mohd. Siddiqur Rahman is based at New York, Ex Country Manager, Frankfurt, Germany of Biman, Bangladesh Airlines).
