Medieval torture in the name of village arbitration

We are appalled by a report in this daily about a woman and a man being tortured and humiliated at the behest of a village arbitration meeting in Galachipa upazila. They were accused by neighbours  of having an extramarital affair. What is most reprehensible about this shameful incident is that it was spearheaded by a former and a current upazila chairmen. These two former and present public representatives took the two individuals to the union parishad office and held the arbitration meeting after which they ordered that they be beaten up, the man fined TK 30,000 and the woman's head be shaved.

We have heard of other incidents where village elders have taken it upon themselves to act as the moral police and arbitrarily impose edicts of humiliating torture on helpless citizens, many of them women. The medieval punishments inflicted on the victims indicate that these self-righteous village elders, in this case, public representatives, have no regard for the laws of the land or for the constitution that prohibits the violation of rights of citizens.

The husband has filed a case against the two former and present officials as well as a few others involved in this barbaric incident. The police, till writing of this editorial, have said they are 'trying' to arrest the accused. The state must ensure that these men, one formerly in their payroll and another in their present administration as well as their cohorts, must be immediately arrested and brought to book. The more such arbitrary village justice that goes against the grain of our democratic ideals are tolerated, the further we will regress as a nation.