He held office once, although briefly. Yet, he came forward because the moral content in the person could not remain a passive witness to the shocking revelations of remorseless avarice and wanton abuse of public office. He stood up to exculpate national politics, a vital organ of our statecraft. This could be a good beginning for what remains, if a lesson is learnt. There is a compelling ground for our national politics to set its course right.

Homicide is the most heinous of all crimes. The latest revelations were chilling. Murder they wrote! And lo! Our dude of a sheriff, the ex-state minister for home, is a benefactor of the murder committed by the cavorting brat of the Vitto Corleone of our business, the chief of the Basundhara Group.

The deal was done for Taka 20 crores, with the full knowledge of our outgoing prime minister. Both Mr. Corleone and his brat are safely out of the country, sunning themselves in the pleasant summer of England.

Over here, the pomaded home minister was equally safe in his immunity, courtesy special ties with the American and British diplomats. The lady left, and his fortune perished. He is bringing out the skeletons from the cupboard, which makes us brood over the fate of our national politics.

This is the man who was involved with extra-judicial killings, described as "killed in crossfire." By his own confession, his moral standard was up for sale. The Basundhara chief bought safe exit for his son for 20 crore Taka, and there is no reason to believe that it stopped there. There are surely others of his kind that bought the law to serve their designs. One may rightly wonder how many of the "killed in crossfire" were murders!

If the chief lawman of the country traded in law and justice with such moral abandon, it casts a doubt over the whole system that he headed. It puts in serious question the fairness and sincerity of the criminal investigations that lackadaisically followed many lamentable killings that took place during the time of the past regime.

This is in sharp contrast to the alacrity with which the home minister and the outgoing government tracked down the JMB kingpins, Shaikh Abdur Rahman, Siddiqur Rahman Bangla Bhai et al, when the western pressure was too hot to handle. What could be the reasons behind 21 August grenade attack, and the killing of Shah A.M.S. Kibria and Ahsanulllah Master?

The personal element is beside the point. It is an incontestable fact that the motives were political. Now that the chief lawman's personal honesty stands badly compromised, it will not be a wild allegation to say that the investigations were lacking in goodwill and were conducted with studied sloth.

Had it not been so, the disconsolate family members of deceased Daisy Rahman and Shah A.M.S. Kibria, ailing Zillur Rahman, Asma Kibria and Dr. Farhad Kibria would not have tired of asking for justice.

While one party has excelled in chicanery and plunder, the other party is not without the warlords to match them in primal ferocity. The "Brown Shirts" of the youth wing brooked no moral scruples in torching 11 passengers of a double-decker bus to their gruesome death.

It is ironical that the chief of the Jubo League has the moniker "Nanak," that brutally dishonours the saintliness of the founder of the Sikh religion. Nobody could sleep with this kind of murder in mind, Macbeth could not! Dr. Kamal, through his penance, has at least proved that there is still some decency left for redemption in our national politics.

The macabre live show of the pummelling, bludgeoning and trampling of political opponents to death was another black incident in our national politics. It is not at all defensible that the leader of the largest and the oldest political party of the country should call on her party workers to swarm into the city with, of all things, "logi" (pole) and "baitha" (oar).

One may rightly ask what her frenzied followers would do with such items in the streets of Dhaka, which is not Venice! It was a passionate call to mount an assault on the "Bastille," marshalling all the pyrotechnics of street agitation.

By the simplest logic such items readily turn into rural tools of combat. They did, but the fight was not over occupying a sandbank, rather it turned Dhaka's Purana Paltan into a war zone, terrifying the city populace into a sombre doomsday silence.

Democracy is the only sensible option before the country. And democracy rides the vehicle of politics. Our politicians are the stewards of democracy. No matter how horribly tainted our politics is, and how ignobly reviled our politicians are, the nation cannot do without them.

The caretaker government has an onerous task, ensuring that the outcome of our next national polls marks a new beginning, and that it does not return our country to the brink. Underlying this pious wish is the weightiest of all wishes, that the muck is not voted back to power to invade our politics.

In such an eventuality, the chance of a lifetime will have gone in vain. In a typical third world country like ours "things rank and gross in nature will possess it merely." That is, we will have our share of predators for a time. The CG would do a fine job if they could succeed in keeping the predators away from our national politics.

That will be a very difficult task indeed, especially because our national politics is happily wedded to business, and consorts so blithely with the bullies, the artful benders of law, and the scavengers in the corridors of power.

Unhappily, the CG is dealing with an "unweeded" garden, and a vial of stringent potion may literally strip off the garden! What I can readily think of is transparency right from top to bottom. Commonly speaking, keep them looking around. And, yes, highlight the "no" vote. Give it some teeth!

Syed Maqsud Jamil is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.