As the big scandal involving RAB personnel behind the killing of more than one hundred persons condemning them as drug dealers is agitating the people the killing of Municipality Councilor Ekramul Haque has exposed the callousness with which citizens of a free country are being killed.
Public demand for judicial investigation will be of no help, the judiciary is also politicised to be obliging. No public institution is fully public any more.
What surprises us is that the police and RAB are our people and how could they as law enforcers kill persons on the basis of the list the Home Ministry supplied them. In this situation how they call themselves law enforcers when they can be used to kill their own people without trial in a court of law. They cannot be ignorant about the obligation to protect life as a guarantee under the Constitution. It is unbelievable that our police
do not respect the Constitution or the life of their fellow brothers. At least they must not forget that they and their children have nowhere to go but to live with us in this country. We really find it difficult to accept those who claim to be our police; really our police. To lose faith in police will create an awfully helpless situation among the people.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan sounds sincere when he says that everybody will be brought under the lawful process. He may be knowing it is no process of law to ask police to kill before they are proved guilty. If the courts are not necessary for applying law then it has no meaning to say that everybody will be brought under the ambit of law and nobody is above law. The simple question is if nobody is above law then how police can be ordered to kill people on the basis of the list prepared by his Ministry.
If the list is genuine why they should be killed secretly and not catch them and try them. Secret killing is no proof of anything-guilty or not guilty. But when killed this way using police doubts persists about their true guilt. Why the government should choose to kill people without publicly proving their anti-people crime like selling life destroying drugs to our young children.
Another thing we must tell the Home Minister is that killing in self-defence or in crossfire has to be proved in a court of law. It is murder if the court does not exonerate the killing as done in self-proclaimed self -defence. It is not a proof of self-defence merely because police or the Home Minister says so.
We are deeply concerned for the damage being done to the police discipline when they are permitted to kill without trial in a court. Do not make our police a force of killers at the instance of the government. They will do the same under another government under another list.
Killing of real drug dealers is good if the people know that they are drug barons. Why the government does not have the honesty and courage to try openly the listed criminals in a court of law? Our courts are so obliging that the government would have no problem in getting justice for the godfathers of drug business.
However sure one is, no government can remain in power for ever. So the people in power now should not set such dangerous examples of getting people killed in police crossfire bypassing law and courts.
The listed drug offenders are known to the government but why they cannot be arrested by police for trial in speedy trial courts is not understandable. It cannot be said but the government also knows that the people do not believe that true drug dealers being killed. Drug business is a huge money making business and many powerful men in the government are involved. The people are suspicious that may be the accomplices are killed so that the godfathers can be saved.
MP Bodi is the much talked about godfather of drug business enjoying protection from the government.
