Perspectives
Non-plussed at the bestiality of crimes
M Abdul Hafiz
The mortal remains of old Dhaka businessman and his son have lately been recovered from Gazipur in more than two hundred pieces. The end of ephemeral life is inevitable. But no one would like to see such ignominious end! The nation is aghast at the brutality and a shockwave runs across the country. The baffled populace looks askance just how many more tragedies of this magnitude will it witness and how frequently. It's mind-boggling to understand the psyche that is at work behind the heinous crime which is ominously not the solitary event of this kind. All over the country the businessmen are subjected to a wave of abduction, extortion and killing. Only in last two months seven businessmen were killed under different circumstances in old Dhaka alone. Never before the community felt so insecured dealing severe blow to the country's economic activity.Before the trauma of a ghastly attack on Humayun Azad is over the Shamsul Huq episode in which he and his son Russel Seikh went missing before they were brutally killed has baffled the people as never before. They wonder how many more deaths are yet to occur in this manner provoking still more number of deaths and, of course, causing mountain of grief and rivers of tears. It is just sickening and the nation is indeed gasping to understand if it is harking back to dark age and has opted for primitive society. There can be an equation for abduction of a businessman a rational for holding them at ransom and even a diabolic compulsion for killing them at times. But the mutilation of a deadbody? Shredding it like a vulture? It immediately points to a pervert mind with an animal instinct which is behind such bestiality. This instinct which pushes the society to the brink of dehumanisation is precisely the cause for concern. For it renders the human conscience dysfunctional making for it wrongs and rights indistinguishable. But this is not for what the country was created and three million people courted martyrdom. It is a great irony today that a nation that fought against insurmountable odds for freedom is to capitulate before a handful of criminals: the terrorists, extortionists and bandits. It is a pity that the establishment of the day cannot give the nation anything in this regard except empty promises with its chronic inability to ensure security and order. Consequently the criminals enjoy field day in this country as they face no organised challenge from any quarter. The government is content and busy with its humbugs and hyperbole while the opposition plays its anachronistic inconsequential and bankrupt polities and both engages each other with blistering blame and counter blame. Nothing can be more congenial for the criminals to flourish who find this country a safe haven for perpetuating their heinous objectives. Where do we go from here? A silver lining is witnessed in the initiative of old Dhaka businessmen. In the prevailing bleak situation they, in a pioneering effort, have united to fight themselves the scourge of killing, extortion and abduction. A few other professional groups also have followed the suit. While we wish them luck more and more resistance to crime must build up with the courage and determination with which the intrepid freedom fighters once faced the heavily armed occupation forces. This is a new war, a unique war. This is the war against the forces of evils. And the nation cannot afford to fail, for its future as well as wellbeing of the millions in the country are hinged to how we fare in this war against the criminals. We are non-plussed, flabbergasted at the bestiality which must stop. Let us lay the bricks of the foundation of a civilised society free from the intimidation of marauders invisibly stalking our city streets and countryside. Let the public ire explode on them like an erupting volcano so that we can usher in a new dawn of reassurance. Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.
| 
