PM should read the DS commentary

We are not disappointed by her lack of success on these issues, for we are aware that these are deep rooted and would need support of all parties to resolve. Our disappointment is with the events that have been unleashed upon us in the last few weeks and her reactions. The heinous attack on Dr. Azad was followed by spontaneous protests. It is true that political elements have tried to gain political advantage out of it. In that context, we even thought that some reaction from BNP's youth wing on similar lines to the spontaneous protests. But then a pattern emerged. These BNP youths were no longer looking like enraged young men.

They were looking more like 'Hitler's Brown Shirts', a term that the editorial used and I think rightly so, for they did not stop just in beating people inside the DU campus with police as its ally; they also extended their net and went after B Chowdhury and beat up his supporters in perfect fascist style. If some of us were still willing to support the PM, we couldn't. She let us down again by allowing her thugs to go after Mr. Mannan and made it clear in no uncertain terms that no one should dare to leave the BNP. For they would be dealt with in the same way as it's been with B Chowdhury and Mr. Mannan. The recent events have made us believe it was decided at highest level of BNP that the best way to deal with defectors was to beat the hell out of them.

The leader who had shown uncompromising potentials for establishing democracy during the movement against Ershad's military dictatorship and articulated the same democratic aspirations while in opposition during AL rule and was equally determined to establish democracy in the initial days of her current stint in power, has suddenly made a u-turn by either siding with the extremists in her party or willingly allowing herself to be run by these elements.

The PM is not only allowing democracy to be a casualty; she is proving what Sheikh Hasina can not, that her government is indeed turning fascist. Time is running out fast for Khaleda Zia and before tackling B Chowdhury or Sheikh Hasina, she needs to tackle her party. She cannot afford to have her political secretary justifying that police was protecting B Chowdhury from public wrath when the public knows that the likes of him turn the thugs he controls on innocent people, people who were just expressing their frustrations against a government that is being run by government with sycophants like him around the PM. The future of the country lies squarely on the PM and her ability to return to democratic norms. We urge the PM to read this editorial seriously for it can save her and the country from destruction.