Student protests spread like wildfire across the capital and elsewhere in the country yesterday, with the demonstrators vowing to remain on the streets until their demands for road safety are met. Angered by police beating on the previous day, thousands of students in uniforms and schoolbags on their back poured onto the streets of Dhaka and blocked various streets, halting traffic.
On Tuesday, police beat up dozens of agitating students, injuring at least 20. All educational institutions in the country remained shut yesterday — on the fifth day of the protest that began after two college students were killed in a road crash near the Airport on Sunday.
Yesterday police went into action against the young boys in Mirpur area in Dhaka. The clashes with students should have been avoided.
Venting anger and frustration through fiery slogans and creative and thought-provoking placards, many students took matters into their own hands to restore order on the otherwise disorderly roads. In fact their demands of justice include all wrongs and injustice committed by the people in power. That should be clear from what the students uttered while checking driving licence etc of cars and buses. They condemn those powerful ones who broke law thinking they are above law. They called an MP caught in traffic checking by the students as fake one indicating stolen elections. Some government cars found on the wrong side of the law were marked as stolen cars.
The depth of the anger of young boys must be understood in the prevailing situation in which the orderly way of their elders have totally failed to end corruption, lawlessness and abuse of power. They saw parents suffer helplessly against police power. They saw the people’s vote do not count. The government should not remain certain of police power. In our view corruption and looting by government men will be major issue in course of time. Sniffing party politics of power struggle will not be the right approach. The boys are not alone.
For the last three days they assumed the role of traffic police, checking documents of almost all modes of transports in presence of police. They took away the keys from those who failed to show their licence. They did not spare Ministers or even DIGs of police.
It has been proved by their concerted actions that there is a deep rot in the road transport sector. But unlike the actions of the student wing of the present ruling party or the police who know only beating as a cure for all ills, our students have shown remarkable restraint and incredible maturity. If they had chosen to do chaos, they could create anarchy.
Like their predecessors of the glorious movements of 1952 or 1971 they have shown that they can also seize the day. Indeed many say that while they were unable to watch the Language Movement of 1952 they were blessed to be alive to watch the student movement of 2018.
This government has no credibility in public eye. We find the situation is bound to be grave where the Ministers have no control of their own and depend on police power for their own protection and solving problems they create. The lies of development and spread of corruption like wildfires are not unknown even to our children.
Our fear is that the government will easily be misled by the corrupt ones around the government. The government must not try any easy tricks to deal with the deeper side of the crisis. We shall urge upon all to spare the children of police brutality. The police are people’s police and they must show restraint in dealing with our children who are pure and full of happy dreams. We all know how unsafe the situation for all of us created by incompetent and corrupt ones in the government.
