Dr. Syed Nesar Ahmad Rumy :
It was just a few days ago before the 12th national elections. An incident took place in the residence of a State minister in charge of primary andmass education and its adjacent DB office.
The news published in the national newspapers and it became public. Apparently the issue mentioned in the newspapers had been mitigated but the implications and ethical issues of that incident exposed the poor ethical standard of some of our peoples’ representatives who are enjoying the high office of the republic.
The incident is that there was a syndicate encircling primary and mass education state minister.
As reported in the newspapers that some subordinate staff and a relative of that concerned state minister had collected money from the job-seekers giving assurance of job of primary school teachers.
In this way they collected money from many of the job-seekers but finally they did not get the job. So, they tried utmost to get back the given money.
For that reason, they had gone to state minister’s residence. But they had faced an unpleasant situation and hot talks with the security personnel of the state minister’s residence.
As reported in the newspapers, then they crossed the wall of the residence of state minister and jumped into the premises of DB office. After that they were caught by the DB personnel.
One of the suffers named Abu Sufian told to a reporter of a much published national daily that a driver of the state minister and nephew of the state minister had taken money from him that he had collected money from the job-seekers and given it to the driver and nephew of the state minister.
The amount of the money was nine lakhs. It is clear from that report that one Abu Sufian acted as middleman in that deal.
The implication of this incident exposed the weakness of the rule of laws in our country and it is also the sign of double standard of enforcing laws in our country.
Those who have influence and somehow connected with the influential persons seem to be above the laws.
The general practice of law enforcers in this case should have been more logical. But here logic did not work.
Law enforcers did not catch money takers who took money from the victims, the job-seekers rather they mediated the deal to get back the money.
Money takers should have been placed under rule of law. But ultimately it did not happen. Only good thing happened here that is the victim jobseekers got back their money.
The whole scenario reflects the poor ethical standard of high profile persons and some members of our law enforcers in our society.
The person who had taken money from the job-seekers definitely had done a criminal offence. High profile person like state minister and high officials of law-enforcing agencies did not consider it is a crime.
If they would truly consider it is a crime, then they could have handed over to them to the appropriate authority for justice.
Definitely concerned state minister and the members of law enforcing agency had shown leniency for their misdeeds. It may be termed as one kind of double standard.
Maybe, similar offence done by persons not having connections with influential persons or high officials of law enforcing agency may not get same type of treatments.
So in a democratic society, enforcing laws selectively will not bring any good to the society rather it is a sign of double standard.
Different time we see many news in the media that members of law-enforcing agencies extort money from the persons they caught.
A news report published in the national dailies on 26 the December last year that some members of CID abducted a businessman, owner of a travel agency at Kuril Bishaw road area. But the DB police later arrested those members. It is a good sign.
We also get some news in the media that law-enforcers make some cases harder and softer as their wish and incident not happened shown as occurrence and later deliberately implicate different persons as their wish.
It is a common perception about many of the law-enforcers in Bangladesh. Even they can make some cases softer after extorting money from the accused.
Situation described above is a kind of social disease. Only administrative actions will not able to trim this abnormality the intellectuals and high-ups of our society should raise their voices against these wrong doings. Otherwise social texture, peace will deteriorate soon and our society might fall into the endless darkness.
(The writer is a former civil servant).