Postscript
Why do they kill us, we never did anything to anyone…
The words of Geeta Sarkar will keep echoing in our heads every time we step out on the streets. They sum up the helplessness and bewilderment of the ordinary citizen. What did we ever do to deserve this? It is beyond comprehension that the demand for a caretaker government can warrant such mindless violence on people trying to get on with their lives as best as they can.
Photo: Focus Bangla
According to Prothom Alo (December 2, 2013) Geeta, a housewife, was taking her daughter, Sushmita, to the ETV office in Karwan Bazar. Sushmita works there as a junior correspondent for 'Mukto Khobor' a programme for adolescents. The bus she was travelling in was attacked by arsonists who set it to fire, burning Geeta along with 18 others. Two of the victims have already died, the others are in critical condition.
At this very moment, Geeta and so many of her fellow citizens are in excruciating pain and asking themselves again and again “why me?” Nobody seems to have the answer to why all these people – children, women and men had to pay such a heavy price because our politicians could not agree on how to hold elections. People are dead or maimed for life just because they were out on the streets, going about their daily chores – to drop their child, to earn their daily bread, to bring whatever normalcy to their lives they could, in an insane environment. Families have been destroyed forever; never again will they forget the terror and grief of losing their loved one who inadvertently became the pawn in a deadly, ruthless game. Chilling is the knowledge that we may have to witness more burning, more killing, in the coming days.
And for what? We really do not know why we have become targets of the most brutal terrorism, for that is what it is. The opposition, feeling that breaking a few cars and killing a few policemen, is not enough to paralyse a nation, have opted for 'tougher action' which is to directly kill ordinary citizens. What's more, let their deaths be slow and painful so that everyone can see what happens when you step out of the house. While the opposition's hired thugs have gone on a burning and killing spree, the government seems to have just been waiting, allowing these sickening crimes against humanity, to go on. Because it makes the other side look bad.
It is beyond comprehension that so far nobody has been caught red-handed setting fire to a vehicle or throwing a cocktail. Newspapers have published photographs of youths gleefully carrying bottles of orange coloured liquid - petrol - dousing it on a vehicle and then setting it alight with a match. TV channels have footage of these criminals in action. If photojournalists and camerapersons can capture such images why can't the law enforcers catch the terrorists in the act?
The losses from this madness are immeasurable. What is the Taka value of all the lives that have perished, the limbs blown off or burnt, the futures destroyed, the livelihoods suspended or annihilated?
Geeta's appeal to the prime minister who visited her in hospital is the appeal of the entire nation. “We do not want a sick government…we want a healthy government…we do not want to bring up our children in this sick environment…you must punish those who did this to us.”
Photo: Focus Bangla
According to Prothom Alo (December 2, 2013) Geeta, a housewife, was taking her daughter, Sushmita, to the ETV office in Karwan Bazar. Sushmita works there as a junior correspondent for 'Mukto Khobor' a programme for adolescents. The bus she was travelling in was attacked by arsonists who set it to fire, burning Geeta along with 18 others. Two of the victims have already died, the others are in critical condition.
At this very moment, Geeta and so many of her fellow citizens are in excruciating pain and asking themselves again and again “why me?” Nobody seems to have the answer to why all these people – children, women and men had to pay such a heavy price because our politicians could not agree on how to hold elections. People are dead or maimed for life just because they were out on the streets, going about their daily chores – to drop their child, to earn their daily bread, to bring whatever normalcy to their lives they could, in an insane environment. Families have been destroyed forever; never again will they forget the terror and grief of losing their loved one who inadvertently became the pawn in a deadly, ruthless game. Chilling is the knowledge that we may have to witness more burning, more killing, in the coming days.
And for what? We really do not know why we have become targets of the most brutal terrorism, for that is what it is. The opposition, feeling that breaking a few cars and killing a few policemen, is not enough to paralyse a nation, have opted for 'tougher action' which is to directly kill ordinary citizens. What's more, let their deaths be slow and painful so that everyone can see what happens when you step out of the house. While the opposition's hired thugs have gone on a burning and killing spree, the government seems to have just been waiting, allowing these sickening crimes against humanity, to go on. Because it makes the other side look bad.
It is beyond comprehension that so far nobody has been caught red-handed setting fire to a vehicle or throwing a cocktail. Newspapers have published photographs of youths gleefully carrying bottles of orange coloured liquid - petrol - dousing it on a vehicle and then setting it alight with a match. TV channels have footage of these criminals in action. If photojournalists and camerapersons can capture such images why can't the law enforcers catch the terrorists in the act?
The losses from this madness are immeasurable. What is the Taka value of all the lives that have perished, the limbs blown off or burnt, the futures destroyed, the livelihoods suspended or annihilated?
Geeta's appeal to the prime minister who visited her in hospital is the appeal of the entire nation. “We do not want a sick government…we want a healthy government…we do not want to bring up our children in this sick environment…you must punish those who did this to us.”
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