Editorial
Making hartal a plaything
Public can't stand the violence anymore
SUFFERINGS of the general people and damage to the economy have become matters of least concern to politicians when they enforce their political programmes like hartal.
A glaring instance of total indifference to public woes even riding roughshod over the feelings of the devotees in the holy month of Ramadan is the three consecutive days' shutdowns beginning Monday. All of these centred on the ICT verdict on former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam.
If they have any point to convey to the people, they should rather take recourse to holding mass campaigns and doing the hard work of mobilising the masses in support of their programme. Just issuing a hartal call is an expedient reaction to any event. Then letting loose hooligans to terrorise the people is abominable and devoid of a modicum of respect for the people.
Already millions of work hours have been lost, scores of vehicles and other public properties damaged and people killed and injured.
We are also baffled at the decision of Gonojagoron Mancha youths and some pro-left student bodies to call a hartal protesting the less-than-capital punishment awarded to Ghulam Azam. They had alternative ways to articulate their feelings.
We sympathise with the feelings of aggrieved Liberation War victim families, who did not get the court verdict they expected against Ghulam Azam. But we must also have to respect the process of law.
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