http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=35294
Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 02:49 AM GMT+06:00
EDITORIAL
Case against 50 thousand! - Making a farce of law enforcement
Implicating as many as 50 thousand people in two separate cases for
torching passenger launches on the Buriganga last Sunday has been both
farcical and preposterous. While a big incident like this one should
have impelled a full-fledged investigation, the FIR was done quite
hastily and on a weak legal premise. Hence one may justifiably ask:
How can anyone include so many unspecified people in an FIR, and then
go about doing the investigation? More often than not, such wide
casting of net opens floodgates for exacting vendetta and rent
seeking.
Our experience shows that when a large number of people are found
involved in a mass demonstration or agitation, law enforcers usually
go for mass arrests, betraying little interest in law enforcement as
such. In majority of such cases mass arrests are done with an ulterior
motive, which is, extortion of money from the arrestees whether guilty
or not. Hence, there cannot be any better explanation for filing cases
against such a vast number of people in the Keraniganj incident on
Sunday. Little wonder, as a result of the two cases, people in the
area are living in an environment of intimidation, uncertainty and
panic.
We strongly feel there is something amiss in the way law operates in
this country, especially while dealing with fallout of any massive
agitation. The knee jerk reaction is to go for indiscriminate hauling
up of people as a show of some post-haste dynamism with innocents
bearing the brunt of it all.
On this count, we feel there should be a clear directive from the
higher courts of the country against such evident malpractice of
indiscriminate and arbitrary arrests that are not legally tenable, far
less morally acceptable. This pernicious practice is an outright
mockery of law of the land and it severely negates the purpose of
governance. We believe this also deals a blow to the credibility of
the legal system.
While we demand a proper investigation of the Keraniganj incident, we
at the same time want the law enforcers to apply caution so that no
innocent person is subjected to persecution but the guilty persons are
brought before the court of law.
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