THE cabinet committee on law and order in a meeting on Tuesday extensively discussed the down trend of law and order situation in the country. But Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq, who chaired the meeting, tried to given a wrong impression to the media terming the overall situation ‘fine’. Insiders said though the meeting witnessed a hot debate on the issues of increasing robbery, murder and rape in the month of June in comparison to May, the minister tried to hide it while answering questions of the media men. Senior ministers, including Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and chiefs of police, Border Guard Bangladesh and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies attended the meeting. Home Minister also denied to disclose anything about meeting.
As per information available in hand, around 320 murders took place in May and 371 in June. Likewise, the 530 incidents of rape were committed in May and the number increased to 579 in June. Some 212 cases of violence against children were reported in June against 198 reported cases in May. Newspaper report said a total of 52 persons were abducted in June while the number was 43 in May. The incidents of cattle lifting were 82 in June while it was 76 in May. The reported cases of domestic violence, however, decreased slightly as 1308 cases were recorded in June in comparison to 1,312 cases in May.
After the meeting, when Liberation War Affairs Minister was asked about the extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance and custodial torture, he said they had not discussed the issues in the meeting. On the involvement of law enforcers in the crimes including enforced disappearance, the minister claimed that they issued warnings so that no law enforcers ever got involved in killings.
It’s clear that the Ministers are trying to suppress the facts when things are going out of their control. We must say, the law and order situation is not ‘fine’ as claimed by the ministers. Things are becoming more dangerous. When country is facing dengue epidemic, at that time Health Minister remains busy in foreign trip with his family. What a miserable situation we are passing through!
