Editorial
Pre-hartal terror
Mentors have to rein in perpetrators
Activists of Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, as a part of their pre-hartal terrorisation, carried out vandalism on Tuesday evening and into the early hours of Wednesday, subjecting unsuspecting commuters and general public to endless suffering. Such pre-shutdown violence has become a pattern. This is abhorrent and reprehensible because it comes without a notice.
In a skirmish between Shibir activists and law-enforcers, commuters, a policeman and three photojournalists were injured in Rajshai on Tuesday. Pro-shutdown activists also resorted to arson, and bomb and cocktail-throwing.
Shibir called hartal demanding release of their arrested leaders. Oddly enough, to achieve that purported end, they have inflicted this punishment on the same public whose sympathy they expect to draw!
Parties or groups that resort to such vile and brutal methods of intimidating people to enforce a shutdown only betray their political bankruptcy. And near normal flow of traffic and movement of people during hartal amply demonstrates how the public have rejected hartal calls and methods.
If Shibir or its political mentor Jamaat have any respect for the people, they must shun the path of hartal and violence. They will only draw the wrath of the people by such disruptive political tactics.
Hartals achieve nothing but cause immense public hardship and destruction of the economy. That is why we, in this paper, have consistently opposed hartal as a means of realising political demands. Invariably it foments violence and leads to hardening positions on both sides as the public are caught in the crossfire.
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