Editorial
Murders in the city
More effective crime control measures are needed
SIX individuals were murdered in separate incidents in the city on Saturday. That is surely worrying, though there will be people who will suggest that such crimes have generally been the reality not only in this country but elsewhere as well. One does not argue against that kind of argument. But the truth about the six murders in question is something pretty disturbing in nature. And it is that of late criminal incidents in the capital and elsewhere have been on the rise. That points to a couple of facts. One is that criminality seems to be acquiring a degree of impunity that can only make citizens concerned about their safety. The other is that it shows that the police are not only unable to keep our streets and homes safe but that they are also ill-equipped to track down the elements responsible for such crimes.
To be sure, we hear of crime suspects being nabbed and taken into custody for interrogation. There is too the cliché about the police looking for reasons behind the crimes committed, which really should not be the priority of the law enforcers. What they should be doing, every time a murder is committed, is to go into swift action to apprehend the murderers and have them hauled up before the law. But much more important than a nabbing of the killers is a gearing up of police patrols and overall police operations to ensure that the crime rate goes down.
Now, the murders in Dhaka (and they include the killing of two police officers in the past fortnight as well as the murder of three men and their burial in shallow graves by the river Turag) are a powerful pointer to how grave conditions are. Almost every day we come across news of people missing, individuals called out of their homes and then disappearing and bodies of unknown persons being found in the unlikeliest of places. Even children have been kidnapped for ransom and then strangled to death. All these cannot be brushed off as normal. They are, indeed, a sign of the malaise which clearly has been eating away at the moral fabric of our society. And unless the malaise is neutralized, we as citizens will remain worried.
The murders of Saturday are a wake-up call to the police administration. The police must bestir and reawaken themselves to the negative conditions unfolding around them. Constant police patrols in the various localities of the city must be in place, particularly in the late hours of the night. We of course often see RAB and police at work on checkpoints on broad roads. It will help if they also make it a point to patrol the lanes and by-lines in the various localities.
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