Polash Ahmed, who allegedly attempted to hijack a Biman flight on Sunday, boarded the plane at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport with no red flags raised at the security checkpoints.
No pistol was detected and no suspicious behaviour was noticed when he made his way through metal detectors and his luggage passed through X-ray scanners at the entrance to the terminal and at the boarding gate. There was no flaw in the security system of the airport, claimed officials at a joint press briefing on Monday.
Yet the question remains as to how the suspect got on the plane carrying what passengers and army officers claimed was a pistol. A pistol was recovered from Polash’s possession during the commando operation that ended with him being killed at Chattogram airport and police said they were not sure whether it was a gun or a toy.
Toy or not, this incident could have far reaching consequences on the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh which itself is trying to be elevated to category-1 from category-2 of the US Federal Aviation Administration so that Bangladeshi carriers could fly to the US.
Yet we know next to nothing about how and why he was shot. For the sakes of an open and transparent investigation it would have been better if he could be caught alive so that we could know what his motivations were. But the trigger happy response of our security forces leads us nowhere with regard to his motivations.
Having a gun should not automatically lead to a license to kill — finding out his real reasons and then trying him properly in a court of law should have been the order of the day. Perhaps he needed psychiatric treatment, or was mentally imbalanced as his ex-wife said. But that does not excuse the trigger happy response of the security forces.
If we kill all of our criminals then we don’t need courts of law or proper investigations into crimes. While hijacking is a major crime the mental instability of the man could have been found out had he been taken alive. Yet the lives of our citizens are counted so cheaply that it takes a second for our forces to act as judge, jury, and executioner. After all, criminals don’t have any rights!
This attitude of the security forces must change and give up thinking death by them is easy and not punishable. Killing a person is easy even for bird killers; we do not need trained experts. The man who has been shot dead as hijacker of the Biman aircraft was not dangerous for the security experts. Yet he was killed erasing vital evidence for any meaningful investigation.
If any investigation is necessary then it should be to find out how justified the killing of the suspect was unavoidable yet a life was lost. We must also know how good the security forces are for our country.
