Fighting crime of illegal casinos is a political decision, admits govt
A team of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Wednesday arrested a Jubo League leader for running a casino at a sporting club in the city’s Fakirerpool area. On the same day, the elite force raided at least five clubs in the city and detained 182 people in connection with running casinos, gambling, drug abuse, and sealed off at least two clubs. Running gambling is illegal under the country’s existing law, but some leaders of Jubo League, the youth wing of the ruling party, have been running casino in the city for the last couple of years. Our strong police force pretends not to be knowing.
The Jubo League Dhaka South Organizing Secretary’s arrest came after a RAB mobile court detained 142 people raiding the casino in Fakirerpool Youngmen’s Club and seized some blackjack tables, slot machines, Tk 24.29 lakh in cash, Yaba pills, and some bottles of liquor. The detained JL leader is the president of the club and was detained from his Gulshan house with three firearms, bullets, and Yaba pills. RAB officials said everyday crores of taka used to be gambled in the casino. Youngmen’s Club was a football club but a portion of its floor space was used for running the “casino”. An arrestee said in the last six months he lost Tk 1.5 crore at the casino and he gathered the money selling off his family land.
In another drive, the RAB mobile court arrested and sentenced 40 people at casinos in Muktijoddha Sangsad Krirachakra in Gulistan and Muktijoddha Chetona Club in Shahjahanpur. They seized gambling materials, drugs, cash, and even touchstone idols. The mobile court also raided the Golden Dhaka Bangladesh in Banani and Wanderers Club in Motijheel area. A huge quantity of gambling materials, drugs, and counterfeit currencies was also seized at Wanderers Club.
The law enforcers became active after AL President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed that it was their political decision to fight against crimes committed by their party followers. They deserve to be congratulated for treating the people as fools and making it clear that whose crimes to be punished and whose crimes should be punished has to be political decision. The conclusion is unavoidable — the government’s followers have been committing crimes freely because they had the assurance of political protection.
If not all, most of the crimes are committed by party men of the government on the basis of assurance that they are above of law and do not have to fear of police or RAB going against them.
It is a great shame for our brave police forces that they were helpless without political decision to go against the criminals for they are government’s men. It is sad for the people.
But we have a different view and that the crimes of party men of the government have gone too far and the government is in shambles for protecting them. So police are in a position to gather courage not to wait for political decision to deal with crimes of powerful criminals. We want to see more courage for fighting crimes.