Journalist bashing portends an ominous trend

The sequence was all too familiar, yet another assault after the recent Kansat carnage so much of the country's peace of mind. Once again the law enforcers earned a bad name and Bangladeshis were steeped in a feeling of shame, pain and bewilderment. The grotesque manner in which DC (port) Ali Akbar and sergeant Anwar resorted to atrocities, as people watched in total shock and amazement on the televised screen, has become a symbol of excesses done and a rallying point for collective national anger and disgust.

Despite the fact that torture either in police custody or on the street is a punishable offence, police resort to all sorts of brutal methods when the alleged offenders are either in police custody or leading protest marches in the street. If arresting crimes only make room for bigger crimes resorted to by the people supposed to curb crimes and at the same time if the method employed creates suspicion, despondency and erosion of respect for the rule of law among the citizenry, then the necessity of law enforcement agency itself must be open to question. Could any law enforcer either in D. B. or in uniform, especially in the rank of cadre officer indulge in such macabre activities that borders on insanity or criminality?

On a larger canvas, the country presents an awesome maze of rules but very little compliance, especially by those holding the long arm of the law. Tragically, the law enforcement agency personnel these days have almost taken it upon themselves the right to silence protests or disintegrate peaceful demonstrations through torture, not perhaps the responsibility of curbing crime.

Speaking about Ali Akbar, he has had somewhat otherwise chequered career. He rose to dizzy heights in the service from the rank of an OC(sub-inspector) allegedly not by merit, efficiency and honesty but by influence peddling and connections as reports appearing in the newspapers indicate. The reports further indicated that he crossed the hurdle of B.C.S (Police) service examination through questionable means. The non-cadre police officer is said to have bagged the kind of postings that would be the envy of even well-connected cadre service officers. The plum postings were the result of political connections he had developed from his student days and nurtured till the last time he was in Chittagong. And there in the Chittagong stadium his strength of connections were visible..

But this time the message has also been forceful enough. Millions across the country rallied behind the journalist community in the country, held meetings and protest rallies. The public outcry over this dastardly incident, in which the alleged offender has just been closed, forced into the glare of attention the inadequacy of the law enforcement when dealing with its own breed.

People are questioning why after such a terrible incident in Kansat that undermined the image of the government, another sad drama was played in Chittagong bringing in its wake further ignominy for the government. The question that looms in mind is, were the two incidents related? Was some shadowy group determined to thwart or undermine Bangladesh's march to democracy by bashing the most vibrant and fearless group of media? Brutality in any form at the behest of the government is a barbaric means of sending a message. The problem here is deciphering the message. While the law enforcers resort to every possible tricks and oppressive measures to silence the peaceful agitation of the people demanding the most vital inputs linked to their living and survival, they remain superbly indifferent to the depravity and erosion of values in folks within their own ranks.

Let us recall some gory incidents of the yester years where police failed to establish its image by booking the offenders within its own rank. The death of Sheema Chaudhury, a 17-year-old garment worker, in Chittagong and the case of Yasmeen who was first raped and then killed by some policemen in Dinajpur in 1995 give eloquent testimony of depravity of a section of the people in uniform. The killing of Rubel, a meritorious college student in Dhaka in 1998 in police custody must be construed as a shameful barbarity committed not by a band of outlaws but by a few members of the police force employed for maintaining the rule of law in the country.

How come this guarantor of public security is fast becoming a threat to civilized norms or order? Of course police crimes, atrocities and corruption have become common place occurrences and people are afraid to approach the law enforcers for redress of their sufferings because of the reprisals they often meet. Police crimes against individuals or groups provoke popular outcry only when fatality results. And after an incident becomes public, the immediate reaction the authorities show is to close the offending member as they have done in case of D.C (port) Ali Akbar in Chittagong. In most cases penalty goes no farther and the enforcement branch forgets as soon as the agonised public or the media stops asking or reporting about it.

There is no shadow of doubt about the fact that in a media-driven world private distress is often catapulted into the public arena. Most ominously, when either media people are killed, or mercilessly beaten or their voices stifled, then all hopes for the recovery of the society from the quagmire of dirty depths are lost. Other than the assault and beating and damage of cameras they suffer, there is a general sense of alarm across the nation that such a crime wave targeting newsmen and photojournalists serves the objective of dissuading them from exposing the vices of society. For example, Humayun Kabir Balu, a veteran and famed journalist of Khulna received several death threats for focusing on the crime situation in Khulna, especially voicing anger, disgust and protest at the ineffectual and flawed investigation into the killing of Manik Shaha, another veteran journalist in Khulna.

Patronage of criminals by politicians vis-a-vis a demoralised police force has pushed up crime in the country. One wonders if there is anything remotely close to government having administrative control of the country. Even after the media focused on the clandestine activities of Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai right from the early part of 2004, the administration apparently played second fiddle to all such menacing groups. Shockingly, the administration's blatant failure to book the perpetrators of journalists' killing one after another have thrown the journalist community into utter despair and many of them are under pressure from their families to leave this 'hazardous' profession. Unless the government takes some drastic measures to provide security to the members of this vital community, democratic values would be put to severe test and the nation as a whole would suffer.

People these days seem disillusioned with the police behaviour and mentality. Battered, oppressed and severely traumatised, people seek the help of law enforcers for redress of their sufferings and grievances. But when they suffer a further beating in the hands of these people, what hope remains of them? It has driven home the message to the public that the law enforcement agency in the country has acquired primacy without any corresponding accountability. Apart from sticking with the rule of law and restraint in the face of highest provocations, there is an alarming tendency among them to ride roughshod with human dignity compounded with abuse of power. If things are allowed to go like this, it only fuel public disenchantment and apathy for such a vital force of the nation bringing in its wake chaos, disorder and total indiscipline in the society.

Md Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of Physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.