Editorial
Chittagong violence
All sides must exercise restraint
Must all political activities and programmes of the opposition lead to violence, destruction, deaths and injury? The clashes in Chittagong between the BNP and its 18-party alliance supporters on one side and the police on the other that lasted for several hours resulted in nearly a hundred being hurt, including police personnel and several journalists too. The party activists also damaged three cars and vandalised a large number of vehicles which could not be condoned.
Reportedly, it all started when two separate processions of BNP and Jamaat, which were proceeding towards the BNP office to join an 18-Party rally to protest the abduction of Ilyas Ali and filing of cases against senior BNP leaders, were intercepted by police. What followed was a repetition of the very familiar scenario. The party men brick-batted the police and the police retaliated. The police even entered BNP office premises chasing the activists into the building and lobbed teargas shells inside it too.
We urge strongly the BNP and its allies to rein in their party activists, some of whom may have deliberately precipitated the situation in some localities, as reports indicate. But the police resorted to preemptive strikes that were clearly high- handed.
And we wonder if the two processions intercepted by the police were violent before they were intercepted. Is there a ban on processions and rallies in the country; if not then why the interception? It is the responsibility of the law enforcing agencies to maintain law and order and they are perhaps at times in a position of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'. But that is where their training and crowd handling capacity come in. Their aim should be to avoid provocations but never allow the situation to disrupt public order.. The law enforcing agencies may not realise but in fact in the name of maintaining law and order they are provoking violence by their premature actions.
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