For opposition leaders and workers they have one set of guidelines and for the sons of men and women in power, a totally separate one to follow. As a result, overweight sons of powerful men and women can go about doing all sorts of things in broad daylight and yet can manage to remain outside the purview of law. You see, in that country law does not chase them. They chase the law. Rather, they chase out the law. That is the beauty of being in power. "Might is right" is the mantra, and "grab it all" is the name of the game. Since these youngsters have nothing else to do, they do what others dare not do. In fact they are there to "undo" everything good that has been done previously by noble men and women.

These cute little "Baby Docs" of the popular leaders (!) have dozens of cases lodged against them in various police stations but no charge sheet has been prepared ever by the police to take them to the court and try them. So, in a recent case of carjacking our reporters in that country got hold of strong evidence of involvement of Mr. Wind, a son of a mighty scary man belonging to the party in power. One of the accomplices of this "boy wonder" even spelled out his name to the police and yet the latter did not prepare a case against him. You see, the police will have to follow the "other" guidelines for the sons of the powerful or else they might get transferred to Andaman or Timbuktu.

On many earlier occasions, this Mr. Wind has been accused of ransacking shops in some shopping malls in the city and extracting toll from businessmen. Since his doting father remains busy politicking elsewhere and since the father does not read newspapers or watch TV news, he remains totally in the dark about his son's activities. He is proud of his son and does want to hear any rubbish about him.

This latest incident of carjacking by his friends is classic. This Mr. Wind simply fell in love with the car as soon as he laid his eyes on it. He wants it. So it is his. No questions asked. Now, the happy baby hops into the car and drives around the city. He even got fake papers with the help of some corrupt elements in the relevant department. So, one evening the illustrious son of the mighty man finds himself in a jolly good mood. He drives downtown and goes to a fast-food shop and begins crushing chicken legs, dozens of them. You see, he loves to eat too. But, by a quirk turn of fate, the original owner of the car happened to be passing by at that moment. This spoilsport immediately recognised his car. He called up the police. The police took the car, the real owner and the fake owner et al to the police station. The papers of the fake owner turned out to be fake too. The legal owner produced valid papers. In the meantime, the ever-nosy media got the wind of the sordid drama. They flashed the news of the latest "karma" of Mr. Wind along with his photo. And now, according to latest news reports from that country, powerful people are working from behind to get Mr. Wind's name out of the police case. Let's wait and see what transpires eventually.

But the police action against the friends of Mr. Wind did not scare off the grabbers. They are still out there laying their paws on people's land, family graveyards, houses, balconies, kitchens, boundary walls even toilets. They grab private cars, buses, trucks, taxi-cabs, autorickshaws and cycle-rickshaws. Then there are shops, ponds, agricultural farms, poultry farms and fish farms to be taken. Wait, there is one thing missing from the list. Believe it or not, dead bodies are not safe either in that country! Specially, bodies of people who have been struck down by lightening get stolen from their graves! Good Lord!

Speaking of dead bodies reminds us of another precious commodity in hot demand at the moment in the grabbing business. And that is a human, very much alive and kicking. Yes, kidnapping for ransom is getting popular over there. It is one form of grabbing too since one has to grab the victim strongly before taking him or her away.

Then there is this special breed of "bank loan grabbers." Some of them are known as first generation loan grabbers who started their grabbing business soon after the liberation of the country. They have their names etched in golden letters in the history books. As pioneers, they made good use of the 'uncles' and 'brothers' in extracting loans against sick or even ghost projects. Since they have siphoned off most of the loan money available at various commercial banks, small-time and genuine loan seekers had to fight for the crumbs to do business. It is amazing fact that about 20 top class defaulters hold nearly 50 per cent of the bad loan in that country? And what is the total amount of that bad loan? It is Tk. 6, 445 crore!! One should actually give these brilliant people the idea of writing a book. This could be a befitting title, "How to Grab Bank Loans and Get Away".

The grabbers of land are doing better business at the moment. These people always lurk in the bushes sniffing for government land and buildings, property of widows or minorities or even helpless elderly people. They start to drool profusely as soon as they smell something that is vulnerable to grabbing. These grabbers work in close cooperation with the powerful people in every government. They befriend close relations of the ministers and MPs and scout the country for such property. The trick of the game is to build a club or a mosque on the land intended for grabbing. One may even use the name of some powerful people living in the "Windy Castle".

Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.