Editorial
Student-trader clashes in old Dhaka
Take steps to avert future violence
Wednesday's violence involving Jagannath University (JnU) students and the traders of Patuatuli in the older part of the city that led to the death of a Janata Bank employee is unfortunate and shocking.
As reported in the media, some rowdy elements with the identity of students from JnU triggered the violence as they forcibly took some sungzlasses without payment from a spectacles shop in the area and stabbed a salesman of the shop when he tried to resist them. Unfortunately, the clashes that ensued engulfed the general students of the university and the traders' community of Patuatuli.
One wonders, why the law-enforces took so long to intervene to tackle the situation before it reached a flashpoint.
There is no question that what students of the JnU, reportedly belonging to BCL unit, did at the opticians' store was as an act of extortion. But the series of events that followed took a rather clannish turn, as the entire trading community of the area and general students of the JnU became party to the conflict. And an innocent worker of a bank became the victim of circumstances, while some public properties were damaged, the trading in the area was closed for a while, and the traffic movement was disrupted for hours.
The way an isolated incident conflagrated into a clannish violence, points to the pace at which intolerance is growing among different sections of the community. Small wonder reports of violent encounters between students and transport workers, students and traders, one group of villagers against another often grab the headlines.
It is up to the sociologists and psychologists to find out the actual causes of why raw nerves are coming into play in society at the slightest provocation and snowballing into widespread violence.
In the present case, the administration, leaders of trading community, student leaders and university authorities should sit together to avert any further face-off.
Meanwhile, the incident should be probed and the culprits punished.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments