Bangladesh – a nation in terror

On December 15, 2009 at 2:30 am, several armed robbers intruded into my house compound and demanded the key to entrance gates to my apartment from the housekeeper at gun point. When the courageous housekeeper refused to handover the key, they assaulted him severely with sharp knife. My entire family was completely terrified. We informed the Uttara Police Station and almost after 45 minutes, police came on spot. Much before, at the hue and cries of my family members, people in the neighborhood started coming in front of my house and sensing this, those intruders fled the spot.

After police came, they inspected the entire place of occurrence and assured us of possible securities and investigation as well suggested us to lodge a formal complaint in the day time. Accordingly, my younger brother and executive editor of Weekly Blitz, Sohail Choudhury went to the Uttara Police Station with a complaint detailing the entire incident. But, police at this stage; refused to register the complaint. They suggested Sohail Choudhury to write that three thieves entered the house and even did not let him mention about the assault on the housekeeper. When Sohail Choudhury wrote it as per their suggestion, police even did not officially receive this complaint. It may be mentioned here that, Uttara area is a part of electoral constituency of the Bangladeshi Home Minister Advocate Sahara Khatun. And, this is the state of lawlessness and inefficiency of the police in her own area. In this case, police in reality is actively trying to save the culprits.

To understand the degree of completely lawlessness in the country, which ultimately turns Bangladesh into a nation in terror, we have to see several recent incidents below, where police officers were caught during robbery as well few cases of minority persecution, where police were giving shelter to the criminals, instead of according protection to the members of Bangladeshi Hindus.

On December 15, 2009, in the afternoon Assistant Sub Inspector of Bangladesh Police named Mainul Huq [who is on duty with Adabor police station in Dhaka] was nabbed by locals while he stopped two businessmen after they withdrew TK. 1.7 million [US$ 22,000] and snatched the entire amount from them. Other policemen involved in the crime managed to flee the spot. They were sub inspector of Kotwali police station Rowshan and constable with Dhaka Detective Branch named Saju.

When the culprit policeman was caught with the snatched amount, police from Paltan police station arrived on the spot and tried to rescue their colleague and denied to arrest him for the crime. Local people violently reacted at such extremely illegal attitude of police and continued to protest till senior officials from the department came on the spot and arrested assistant sub inspector Mainul Huq for the crime. When Mainul Huq was being taken in the police van, he was smiling and shouting at the businessman of dire consequence. Smiling picture of this culprit policeman appeared in Dhaka´s leading vernacular daily Manabzamin on December 16, 2009 at the back page. It is well apprehended that subsequently Paltan police station will make all out efforts in saving this culprit along with his gang members.

It may be mentioned here that, on February 22, 2009, armed men stormed into the office of Weekly Blitz, looted valuables and assaulted its members in presence of the police from Paltan police station. Most of the police stations in Bangladesh, during the present government, have turned into safe haven of the criminals and members of Bangladeshi law enforcing agencies are continuing to do everything in saving the culprits instead of taking legal actions against them. This has caused into severe deterioration of law and order situation in the country. Even the Home Minister confessed on several occasions that the law and order situation was deteriorating in the country.

At Naranyanganj district [which is just 20 kilometers from the capital city], a minor Hindu girl named Swarna Halder was abducted by groups of Muslims for forceful conversion recently. Family members of the victim went to Bandar police station and lodged complaint. But, police is showing total reluctance in taking any action against the perpetrators. They even are not taking any initiatives in rescuing the abducted girl. When contacted, many of the senior officials of Bangladesh police tried to term this notorious incident as ´mere romantic affairs´. Even the officer-in-charge of Bandar police station told local human rights activist Advocate Robindra Ghosh that the case was not abduction by ´love affairs´. Possibly Swarna Halder will never be rescued and her abductors will be able to manufacture some marriage document, though she still is minor in age and according to Bangladeshi law, marrying a minor is a serious offense.

In fact, Bangladeshi law and law enforcement agencies are completely reluctant in according proper assistance to the members of religious minorities in all such cases of abduction and forceful conversion. When Awami League government came in power in January 2010, particularly the members of religious minority groups were happy as the party officially claims to be following secularist ideology and always were claiming to be champion defenders of rights of religious minorities. But, the track record of past several months are extremely worrisome and it clearly leaves alarming signal to the Bangladeshi Hindus as well as other members of the religious minorities that they are not safe in the Muslim dominated Bangladesh and they may not even expect justice incase of such abduction of any of the members of their families.

Swarna Halder is just one case and surely there are hundreds which even fail to draw media´s attention. Advocate Robindra Ghosh has already brought a few cases of abduction and forceful conversion of Hindus to the attention of local and international media. But, in all cases, the ultimate result was very much alarming. None of the abducted members were returned to their families. None!