Concern about law and order

The very night combined patrol teams were deployed across the country and a similar drive by three specialised units of the police was launched in the capital against robbery, mugging and other crimes following a meeting of the Core Committee on Law and Order at the secretariat on Monday, there was surprisinly no letup in such criminal incidents. On that night, Gazipur became a witness to the killing of an auto-rickshaw driver before snatching way of his vehicle and stabbing of a shoe trader while Tk70,000 was looted from him by muggers in the capital's Wari area. Next day brought the chilling news of stabbing to death of a mother in front of her daughter while they were returning from the latter's coaching class. Early at dawn the same day, robbers stopped four buses on a school study tour from Mymensingh's Fulbaria to Natore on Ghatail-Tangail Road by creating a barricade with logs to rob students, teachers and guardians.

Before all these criminal acts committed on Monday night and Tuesday, right at the time the vigilance was supposed to be at its most intense, there had been a sharp rise in the incidence of similar crimes including a robbery on a running bus in which women passengers were also sexually harassed, if not raped. Protests and outcries against the rising incidents of mugging, robbery, rape and murder ---evidently a steep deterioration of law and order situation---actually prompted the authorities to launch combined and coordinated drives in order to arrest the slide in social security and the widespread public apprehension. Students protesting the precipitous decline in social security held the Home Affairs Adviser responsible and demanded his resignation within 24 hours. Strangely, the adviser, emerging out of the core committee meeting, disappointed the nation by commenting, "I would say the law and order situation is satisfactory". He went further, "Minor incidents" always occur. Such statements sound like those of the people in power of the deposed regime. This is not expected of the man at the helm of home affairs under the interim government. There is no way of trivialising as serious a matter as the constant threat to lives of the citizens both at home and outside of it.

Not only his statement but also the two days' incidents of mugging and stabbing along with robbery are sure to send a wrong message to the public. If the first night's deployment of specialised units of the police ---the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Anti-terrorism Unit --- on top of the Operation Devil Hunt, fails to have a deterrent effect on the criminal acts, it will strike further terror in the hearts of the people. Turning a blind eye by the administration to the rampant anarchy that was let loose by certain quarters in recent times is now reaping its poisonous harvest. Anti-social elements felt emboldened by the unrestrained aggression to go about their heinous business.

Clearly, the elite forces must strike fast. The army is also on patrol duty. Therefore some discerning results of their combined and coordinated campaign against the criminals on the prowl should be on public display. As many members of the criminal gangs as possible must be holed out of their dens and put behind bars. The operation should continue as long as law and order situation improves to a level where security of life at home, business outlets, on roads or in public places is ensured.