THE banality of social cruelty are now surpassing all imagination as the news report said a grown up boy has set his father and mother on fire, because they had refused to buy an expensive motor cycle to the boy who wanted to replace his another motor cycle that the parents bought him only recently. The father later died in hospital while the mother is struggling to recover. The most beloved boy reared in most luxurious style of life thus appeared to be a curse to the family as they apparently made him so by spending huge resources. We must say the son committed the most heinous crime but the parents are no less responsible because they have not allowed him to learn plain living.
The killing of the 7-year boy out of enmity has nothing to do with the minor victim. We see the perpetrators are no less cruel than the trigger-happy militants, but there is no social mobility and state action to deter such cruelties. Meanwhile, the burning of the parents showed that love and respect at family level has so much eroded in some cases. Not only the ill-fated father, many fathers are now seriously troubled how to assess their situation.
Family members said the boy went out of the house for playing and later they found him lying unconscious in a field closer to their home with strained in the face and head. The two incidents are tiny dots of a large crime map in the country as it is spreading wings with political crimes growing unbridled with impunity throughout the country. Children are victims of envies of neighbours to their elders. Only early this year four boys were killed by neighbours in a single act of cruelty in a Habigonj village. It seems such crimes are growing unimpeded. As per rights groups, 727 children were sexually abused in 2015, which is 224.55 percent higher than that of 2014, and at least 95 were killed. Moreover 138 minor girls were raped from January to April this year.
The rapid rise of cruelty against children and family members is a reflection of cruelty we find in our politics. We have to scrutinize and rethink about our politics to make society safe.
