Role of Rab

By Syed Jawad Quader Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
26 December 2004, 18:00 PM
This is response to Mr. Kaushik's letter on the issue of Rab published in your newspaper on 09/12/04. An old Bengali saying goes as "Kata die kata tulo". Apart from the obvious meaning, a close observant would find an inferred precondition qualifying the original meaning, which is "as a last resort". Don't you think that it is high time that this phrase was put to action? Don't you think that Rab was just the outcome of the application of that action?

In a country where tens of people are murdered every day in congruency with thousands of other reported or unreported crimes, and where the law and the state demonstrate wholesome incompetence in combating it, we do not have the luxury to care about human rights of alleged criminals. The country should be cleansed of such people. Such people should have a source of fear and apprehension. The only thing they fear is death (capital punishment), as other means of punishment can be evaded easily by making a phone call. Rab has thankfully instilled that fear in the hearts of criminals. The author has raised the point of the court's role in upholding law and order. Don't you see that the court has failed in its role to uphold law and order so far? Don't you see that general people feel discouraged to go to court to seek justice? Justice delayed is justice denied. Where courts take ages, even generations, to deliver verdicts, it is only practical for commoners to lose faith in their competence.