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Banshkhali tragedy --- a burning Shame for the nation by Md. Asadullah Khan | |||
| From Banskhali to Pabna to Jhalakathi the whole region is a tinder box of crime: namely, killing, burning, raping, arson and violence. Unbelievable and most horrific, at Banskhali 11 persons 7 of them women, 4 children and one adult in the family of Tejendra Lal Shil was burnt to death on the midnight of November 17 last, believably with incendiary materials. It is hardly believable that the gangsters at Banskhali came with the motive of committing dacoity in a not so affluent house. In the ground floor of the two storied mud house of Tejendra Shil, the marauders did not break open the steel almirah that might have contained the valuables. The burning to death of Tejendra Lal Shil and 10 members of his family to death in a rural outback, 80 km away from Chittagong was an act of such horror, such barbarism that there is almost no Bangladeshi who does not feel personally shamed. To lock a family inside a house, burn them to death and cheer is barbaric. A stunned nation reeled under the sheer audacity of the attack and ferocity of the revenge killing or hatred, presumably the handiwork of some disgruntled and deviant groups operating without resistance. Let us not delude ourselves by thinking that the attack either in Banskhali , Jhalakati or Pabna was some isolated incident. It demonstrated much more forcefully that the country has been a "soft target" and the law enforcement agency was hardly capable to challenge their might. Muhuri murder in Chittagong, raping, and killing of teenage girls at Bagerhat, Dinajpur and in recent time two cases of burning in Jhalakathi and Pabna are pathetic reminders of our softness and shoddy police investigation. The reaction of the police administration was unfeeling and defensive compared to the Prime minister whose distress was visible because she enquired about the ghastly incident from the Holy Kaba Sharif where she was performing umrah at the time.
In a pathetic bid to be liberal and apathetic to all such cases of violence in the country the political class has been gently nudged along the path of appeasement. After several days of the incident, a S.I. of Police has been suspended for neglect of duty. There is no point pinning the entire blame on authorities or police. As for the Police, apart from normal problems like corruption and overwork, it is hamstrung by familiar political pressures and there is no denying the fact that both the authorities and administration are paralysed by the lack of political will.
Charred beyond recognition and reduced to fragile frame of ashes at Banskhali 11(eleven) bodies in Tejendra Shil's house lay scattered without any one reaching for help. Nothing worked for the hapless family members. Amazingly, after breaking open the door of the house forcibly the murderous gangs set the house ablaze without looting or touching anything. Even in a country where life is so easily extinguished either on the road or river there was a feeling of revulsion about this ghastly murder. It was surely as much the method of killing that stunned people. Every man, woman and child in the country has been united as rarely before by a collective sense of revulsion. In fact, the country has betrayed itself. The beastly act done, the mauraders melted away in the darkness of the night as the flames that had leapt skywards simmered. But the heat generated by the senseless killings in Banskhali, Pabna and Jhalakathi and the outrage stoked are far from ebbing days after the incident.
People wonder if the state has revealed itself to be completely incapable of fighting the forces of violence and gangsterism. What happened at Banskhali was an evil and would perhaps not have happened at the first place if the earlier murders at Chittagong region were properly investigated and actual culprit or culprits had been booked. What we have seen some groups regardless of the communities or religion they belong to are carrying a political agenda whose entire basis, whose reason d'etre is factionalism, sectarianism and in most cases communalism of the most vicious kind. It is the sort of political agenda that ends up harming its proponents as much as its victims because its very essence, its soul is destructive. This is now beginning to happen in many extremist groups who are getting eliminated by fighting with each other. Unfortunately, the administration for reasons best known to them did not root out the evil forces at the outset and now they have spawned in many places, throwing an open challenge and visibly stalling the growth and development of the country.
With such grisly incidents so far confined to some regions of India, mainly Gujarat, Orissa or Assam, the evil forces have now crossed the border making its ugliest appearance in Chittagong, Khulna, Bagerhat, Jhenidah and Pabna. The nation went numb with shock and horror because all these dastardly actions were anathema to our usual belief and tradition. In Chittagong region such criminal practices were not uncommon these days. Sensing dangers lurking all around, three teenage girls in Tejendra Shil's house were given night shelter in their uncle's pucca house close to their residence. The mauraders did not possibly know about it and frustrated they went on the rampage. The P.M. performing Umrah at the Holy Kaba Sharif was shocked beyond measure and instructed the Home Minister and other Ministers belonging to Chittagong region to personally visit the site of carnage at Chittagong. But the P.M. could have done something more as the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did to put all cristicism to rest in the sensational Staines murder case at Orissa in 1999. When the needle of suspicion in the murder of Christian missionary Staines and his two sons was being pointed to the Bajrang Dal, very much an outfit of RSS, linked to the ruling BJP, the Indian Prime Minister other than sending three important cabinet ministers to the remotest Manoharpur village of Orissa, announced a judicial probe headed by a Supreme Court judge. Mentionably Staines along with his two sons Phillip (10) and Timothy (7), were burnt alive in a station wagon they were sleeping in that fateful night, while out on missionary work in a jungle region of Orissa.
Before the horror, shock and grief could die down the nation learnt with stunned disbelief two more attempts of burning to death by setting ablaze three houses at Jhalakati and Pabna, the first one relating to pervious conflict and the last two totally clueless. In the burning case that shook Pabna, two innocent housewives and one child, fast asleep in that fateful might in their thatched houses were burnt to death, while the father of the child, a day labourer was away to Rajshahi. Criminals were there in the past. But most shockingly, criminals involved in most of the tragic incidents in recent time are innately evil and even pathologically delinquent. In the Rampura area of the city, Rahmat Ali, a jhoot businessman was shot by some extortionists in the area. But the most tragic end came when the extortionist group again swooped on him while he was recuperating in the post operative ward of the Mahakhali lung disease hospital and shot him to death in presence of his wife and daughter on the next day.
Not even the harshest words could measure up to the indignation felt in either at Banskhali killing or the killing of Rahmat Ali at the IDH hospital at Mahakhali. Banskhali has again surfaced in the news headlines for another most atrocious incident. On the night of Eid-ul-Fitr a teenage girl Rafeza was tortured to death after she was gang raped by four hoodlums. The gaping injury on her body and the brutality perpetrated on her remind us that barbarians are now living in Bangladesh. This is a sort of killing that belongs to the world's inventory of black deeds. As the wave of condemnation rattles the whole country, people describe such killing as most barbaric and a savagery of its worst kind. One might call it as a monumental aberration of time-tested tolerance and harmony of rural model of peaceful living. The spurt of violence, arson and killing relating to partisan politics, extremist movement and religion-related violence is more than alarming. Once known as the most resilient country, that has weathered many crises like liberation struggle, famines, sleazy politicians, insensitive administration, discord of the type we are witnessing now whether it is religion-related or sectarian violence terrifies us the most. It is the only thing that can tear this country apart.
The country does have people belonging to many faiths, sects and communities and they are spread all over this land. But when sectarian vengeance, communal discord, or partisan conflicts become major issues and politicians gain by fanning such discord, civil society as we know it, begins to unravel. We have seen this in the violence and ruthless elimination tactics of an entire nation resorted to by the infamous Pakistani rulers in 1971 on religion issue in Bangladesh, violence against the Sikhs in India in 1984 and in the riots that followed the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodha in 1992. Now once again there is a feeling of uneasiness in the air in our country..
As the cycle of violence and killing continues in Chittagong and some other regions in the country, the reason put forward for Banskhali massacre as something related to dacoity is far from convincing. Overwhelmed by poverty, illiteracy loss of farmland, drought, erosion and natural ravages, Chittagong and some other regions in the country are low on general expectations and high on religious fervour. People want to know for certain the reason that triggered the massacre either at Banskhali or Jhalakathi or Pabna. Undeniably true, all these dastardly incidents appear to be only the logical culmination of years of apathy toward some major issues which has totally discredited the administration and allowed criminals and armed gangs to hold sway in the country. The recent killings have deepened the religion-political divide and hatred in the country more than ever and that's a dangerous symptom for the nation to survive and foster development. As the country waits for the harsh truth to emerge, it can only rue the fact that differences or conflict can be resolved by roasting people to death or slaughtering them to pieces.
Source: |
www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/ajoy/bashkhali.htm - Cached - Similar
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