Editorial
More lives being lost
Police under siege is a bad omen
ALL our exhortations for restraint have had little effect on people to whom these were addressed. What we are noticing now is more of planned attack on police seeking to arrest Jamaat men. The case in point is the mayhem on Friday in Chapainawabganj and Sirajganj.
At least five men got killed and 50 injured in clashes between the law enforcers and the extremist political activists. Among the dead were two Jamaat men and one BNP person, according to the local people, with the remainder two apparently without any political identity.
The question is why must we incur such losses of lives? The pattern of incidents leading to fatalities and injuries speaks of intelligence failure, lack of risk assessment and consequent administrative preparedness to match the ground realities.
In the first incident in Chapainawabganj a police team went to a village in wee hours of the night to arrest Jamaat activists, said to have been involved in torching of Kansat Palli Bidyut substation on February 28. The Jamaat-Shibir elements set off a few fire crackers when the police reached the village. The people converged in big numbers from nearby villages and literally encircled the policemen and threw brick chips at them.
Then came the reinforcements to the force including Rab and BGB.
Clashes ensued and the law enforcers at one stage resorted to firing in retaliation. Hence, the loss of human lives and wounds inflicted on a large number of people including some policemen.
In Sirajganj, the police arrested a Jamaat leader and took him to the police station. This spurred the activists on to ransacking shops and homes of ruling Awami League elements. As if that was not enough, Jamaat men spread a rumour that law enforcers were attacking innocent villagers and asked them to gather in force. As usual, the police used teargas to disperse the villagers failing which they fired shotgun shells.
The hiatus between the police and the villagers needs to be addressed. There is miscommunication somewhere along the line. Neither the local administration including police nor it seems the AL supporters maintain any liaison with the rural people. Mere law and order approach cannot be effective unless it is combined with inculcating the right messages in the minds of the gullible and enraged villagers.
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