When mob justice takes hold

But the way 40 alleged pirates in the dense forest of char areas in Noakhali were hacked to death is a grim reminder that we are resorting back to the jungle laws. The lesson from the inaction of the Noakhali police against these "mobsters" is unmistakable : the next bout of lawlessness is not unlikely in the face of government failure to enforce rule of law. In another incident on 8th May last in the metropolis, a mob in the city's Tejgaon area beat two youths, allegedly fleeing with valuables after robbing a house of an employee in the Shere Bangla Agricultural University. Although police rescued Rafiq (22) and Masud (23) in a battered condition, and sent them to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Rafiq succumbed to his injuries in the evening. Unhappily, ill-equipped the small contingents of police deployed in some areas who appear to be immobile and most often gossiping among themselves sitting in a tranquil zone and hardly reporting to the crime scene are most unlikely to bring such gangsterism and lawlessness under control. Also they look helpless and dumbfounded in presence of a thousand-strong mob that eventually swells around the scene of looting or hijacking. In fact, the mass frenzy is because of police inaction.

Media reports earlier on February 16 last revealed that angry villagers in the Fatikchari upazila of Chittagong district had beaten 10 dacoits to death. That on April 25 last, angry villagers of Krishnanagore village in the Faridpur district had beaten eight gangsters to death in broad day light before the arrival of police at the scene. Fed up with the increasing incidence of theft, extortion, looting, and repression of young girls in their area that brought no response from law enforcing agencies, the villagers out of pent-up anger took law in their own hands and had beaten them to death. Shockingly true, police intervention and investigation have been thoroughly flawed and corrupt and judicial system has been highly insensitive -- prompting such frenzied action.

While undertrial prisoners await justice for years, those who seek justice from the court in personal disputes or against executive or police inaction or excesses, are finding the system twisted, narrowed and full of sharks. Thanks to the inefficiency or capriciousness of the investigating agencies, only about 5 percent of the registered cases in any year lead to conviction.

Thirty-three years after the constitution has been adopted and even when so many amendments to legal system has been incorporated, the law appears to most ordinary people to be an object of fear which is better avoided.

Infused with the adage that "nothing inspires more confidence than self-defence" and faced with the chilling reality that the police cannot ensure safety in their merchandise movement, the traders of Dashmina upazila in Barisal district reinforced by the residents of Char Borhan swooped on the river pirates then busy in looting goods from their boats on May 16 last. In their bid to repulse the attack, the traders poured acid into the eyes of 11 alleged pirates.

Despite the fact that law enforcing agencies are now equipped with modern gadgets including cellular phones and fast moving vehicles they have sadly failed to report to the crime scene or troubled spot in time to apprehend criminals or for containing violence. It is learnt through media reports published on May 3 last, that some alleged extortionists numbering about 5 (five) while extorting money from some fish and vegetable vendors in the Rampura City Corporation market were rounded up by people and severely beaten. One of the alleged extortionists Jamal succumbed to the beating before the arrival of the police. In most cases atrocities get fueled by some over-zealous provocateurs who leave the troubled spot after troubles have intensified. On the other hand, in absence of police action, people seem to have accepted "mob justice" as the only way to punish hijackers, extortionists, traffickers and child lifters sometimes just on suspicion.

Understandably, much of the street justice is a reaction to the country's ineffectual criminal justice system. There prevails a crisis of confidence in police as evidenced by many a report carried in the media. One such report indicated that Surat Ali (45), a top gang leader at Bandar Thana in the Narayangonj town and accused in about two dozen criminal cases ranging from extortion, looting and killing evaded arrest all the time. On May 3 last, while he was gossiping with his gangmates in the garden house of his mentor-friend near Nayapur Bazar at Sonargon, he fell victim to rival's bullets. Not only that, the rival gangs severed his head, cut off his fingers and made jubilant march in the area with his head in broad day light. Because of alleged unholy alliance with the cops, Surat Ali evaded arrest all the time as his rival gangs are doing now.

Winning court case, convictions and prison sentences against even the notorious traffickers and offenders is a "herculean task", say legal experts. It has been revealed in a Judicial Commission report made public in the recent past that about 75 percent of the criminal cases end up in acquittal of the offenders because of weak and flawed investigation report. Many of the hit men, even if can be identified are often untouchable in the courts as well as outside. They routinely terrorise witnesses and the relations of the victims and thwart investigation. Reports have it that in the Ahsanullah Master M.P. murder case, some alleged chargesheeted assailants are hurling threats over telephone to the relations of the deceased pressurising them to withdraw their names from the FIR. In cities and villages criminal gangs operate with near impunity allegedly bribing and corrupting officials and murdering anyone who gets in their way.

But now people are demanding to know what the government is going to do about it. A failure to bring crime of any sort under control could cost not only the image of the government but also its whole experiment with democracy. Peace loving citizens hate chaos, and the unremitting violence and lawlessness they see everyday have shaken them to the core. A noted social scientist in the country says, "Most people exhibit their frenzied behaviour as a protest against the 'helplessness' or inaction of the government in dealing with crime.

Faced with a mushrooming crisis, the top echelons in the government called for restraint and urged people not to take law in their own hands, assuring people of the steps to stem crime. All these assurances have sounded hollow and have fallen on deaf ears given the fact that apparently little had been done until now to put teeth in the nation-wide crime-busting programme.

People even tend to believe that maybe, any stirring in the police administration and a persistent pressure from the power that be has much to contribute in preventing or solving crimes. For that, the country needs a comprehensive crime code to spell out violations of the law, a truly and determined professional and well-paid police force and a functioning judicial system. As it appears, some of the most honest and best police professionals who seem to be increasingly frustrated might quit the service and opt for working for the private security companies that seem to be coming up these days. Many people, however, believe that the reforms will go nowhere because of crime and the situation out of it has definitely reached a level that warrant extra-ordinary measures.

While analysing the cause of such societal drift towards lawlessness and impatience in sections of population, one also gets impression that fiscal deficits, and faltering GDP growth in the industrial sector, may yet cause prosperity to fizzle out. And allowing this state of drift to continue has its dangers. This is likely to cause way-wardness among the country's disgruntled youth force.

Political leaders and administration could hardly know when and how a whole generation of hungry, disillusioned and disgruntled youth turned to a 'trade' that proves so costly for the nation. Casting a look around the world, we see that even in South Africa torn by infighting and savagery for years, optimists now find a jubilant example of the victory of democracy and a return of normalcy that the end of the "Cold War" has ushered in. But out of our country come warnings otherwise. A sense of alienation of youth force from the hum-drum of national activities, a grotesque feeling of deprivation and a seemingly lack of participation in the national rejuvenation programme and lack of employment opportunities are supposed to be the primal reasons for their slide to crime, drug addiction, trafficking in women and children, abduction and extortionism.

It seems a chilling prospect, a situation fraught with dangerous consequences that some thugs blurting out an indecent yell with fingers pointed at a passerby could cost his or her life, allowing no scope for the individual to prove his or her complicity or otherwise in a crime. People are wondering as to why the situation came to such a pass. Even if we condemn such violence in the strongest language at our command, we cannot remain oblivious of the cracks and tremors that have developed in the society over the years. People have hardly any knowledge as to how many of these rapists, abductors or extortionists have been tried and brought to book. Rather they have stories full of anguish, shock, horror and harassment.

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