For the police to fear about their own safety is a matter for us all to worry. Killing, assault with dangerous weapons, kidnapping and extortion have become all too frequent crimes. Grabbing the helpless people’s lands is also quite a normal thing. The Cantonment is not also safe. Very recently, a Military Police was assaulted. A few police lost their lives. What is surprising is that the police have no difficulty in showing the culprits arrested in no time. As a solution for the problem, the government is arresting hundreds of BNP and Jamaat leaders and workers. It must also be noted with anxiety that crimes against women are rising more particularly in the countryside. A newly wedded girl was whisked away from Araihazar in Narayangonj district and the abductors returned her after four days. That was not the only incident, many such crimes are being committed every day elsewhere in the country. Every such news does not get publicity or public attention.To the public knowledge, crimes are mainly committed by those who feel free to indulge in crimes knowing that police will look the other way. Police know everything and the victim people are not to be trusted cannot be right thing to know the truth.The government seems to care only about empowering the police for easy solution. The police are thus overwhelmingly burdened. The police themselves are tired.A new instruction has been issued by the Prime Minister herself to the courts not to grant bail without considering the gravity of the crimes. Such directive to the courts from the Prime Minister will impair further public confidence in the judiciary. This was not advisable for the independence of the judiciary.Let us ignore who commit the dangerous crimes, but let us think of how the powerless and angry people must feel when police power is so unbounded. They cannot expect remedy from the courts also, the people are just leaderless. Already the Supreme Court is reluctant to grant advance bail. The result is that the court and the people both are helpless to uphold the principle that nobody is guilty before finding him it so by the court. We have been advocating for a political solution but mass arrest of the opposition men are making political cooperation harder. Now, the police cannot only arrest anybody and keep him in jail without bail but has the power to take away anybody’s life.The most disturbing political and enduring cause of unrest in the country is the divisive politics in the name of the liberation war. The liberation war that united us is being used to divide us to fight each other all over the country. Those few who are talking big about the liberation war are interested in making Bangladesh undemocratic. They cannot be freedom fighters if they do not believe in democracy. They, perhaps, do not know the people’s sacrifices for the liberation war.The yes men nowhere is considered good for good governance. In the Parliament no opposition is in existence. To rely on yes men all the way is for the government to remain blind to the realities in public life. One test of their honesty is to find out how much wealth these yes men have made dishonestly.
