JOURNALIST Ariful Islam on Sunday secured bail following a high court petition after being arrested from his house in Kurigram at the dead of night and jailed for one year on charge of “possessing narcotics”. Ariful, journalist of an online news portal, busted scams and the abuse of power by the Deputy Commissioner of Kurigram, Sultana Pervin. The DC office staffs including RDC and executive magistrate picked him up at midnight, tortured him, and awarded him one year of imprisonment under the narcotics act by instantly setting up a mobile court. The misappropriations of tax, personal gains, recruitment by bribes, naming a pond after the DC’s name — all were published by the journalist. But setting up of the mobile court, awarding imprisonment at night – all are illegal activities, though country’s politically-backed bureaucrats possess the power. This is happening because the government has drastically failed to show its accountability in any sector and now becomes over-dependent on the bureaucracy to save it from obvious collapse. Following wide coverage of the torture and imprisonment of the journalist in the media, the government formed a committee to investigate the allegations against the DC. The State Minister for Public Administration yesterday said they would withdraw the DC.
But only withdrawing the district’s chief executive officer cannot be a punishment. Rather for her criminal offence, a case must be lodged against the DC and her accomplices. The question to answer is whether the DC concerned felt there was a government. She certainly did not. The government appears to be broken. Ariful’s wife said the DC office staffs mercilessly tortured her husband after making him undressed; took a video shot of the whole incident. All barbaric acts happened in the DC office, the highest government office in any district. The district narcotics department and police allegedly had extended their support in committing the heinous act. We condemn such nasty criminal acts by the state apparatus. The DC and other involved defied the existence of the government and took law in their hands. There was no need for a mobile court at midnight for alleged crime of drugs.
Earlier, we had observed similar attacks on journalists for reporting on corruption, bursting judicial crime and expressing dissent. The divisions among journalists have made them easy victims of abuse of law. But they will not learn.
