Dealing with lawlessness

The streets of the capital city have recently been witnessing unending protests by both large and small groups of people, causing the traffic to come to a standstill for hours. This has been exacerbated by the very latest series of violent clashes involving students of a few colleges leading to vandalism on college campuses and the resulting chaos spilling over into the streets. Obviously, these violent incidents are posing a huge challenge before the law-enforcement agencies which appear to be quite clueless about how and why those disruptive events are taking place out of nowhere. Though these incidents may look disconnected, to all appearances, they are not. Clearly, the aim of all these apparently isolated events is to create instability in society.

One wonders, what the intelligence branches of the police department have been doing as no pre-emptive action could be taken so far to stop those mayhems from happening in the first place. Take the case of the arrival in the city busloads of people from different corners of the country in the dead of night on Sunday, 24 November until the next morning in the Shabagh area. Had it not been for the watchful eyes of the Dhaka University authority, who first informed the police of the strange movement of people in the area, the next day could witness a large public gathering at the Shahbagh crossing of the city. Who knows what kind of chaos and mayhem would have resulted. After the police intervened and arrested some key persons behind the strange event, it could be learnt that people who arrived at the Shahbagh area were given the false promise of lending them interest free Tk 0.1 million each. Those behind the event, it came out from a leaflet later, were leading what they termed an organisation styled 'a peaceful mass uprising'.

Now the question is why were the law-enforcers completely in the dark about the plot to create yet another instance of lawlessness in the city? Though at a press briefing in the evening of Monday (November 25), two advisers of the interim government termed the violent incidents in the city pre-planned attempts at creating instability in the country and that those involved in the disruptive incidents would be brought to book, the uncertainties remain. For the public want to see matching action that would prevent repetition of similar violent street brawls, ruthless assaults and ransacking leading to loss of life or damage to public property. If such anarchy is allowed to continue undeterred, the public at a stage might lose faith in the government's ability to end lawlessness and protect them from any worse eventuality in the future. Failures in terms of both intelligence and preparedness are concerning.

True, the police are undergoing reconstruction following the bloody student-led mass uprising of July-August in which the forces drew the wrath of the public due to their previous anti-people role during the Hasina regime. So, it is understandable why they (the police) sometimes dither about facing the riotous events in the city streets and elsewhere in the country. But then there are also members of the armed forces with their magistracy power to tackle anarchistic developments anywhere in the country. In that case, why don't they (the armed forces) exercise their full authority to restore law and order? Most importantly, they cannot be unaware of the fact that what they are facing at the moment is not routine law and order. In truth, these are post-revolution phenomena and the country is still on a war footing. So, it calls for addressing the unpredictable incidents of disorder and anarchy accordingly.