Recent incidents show that the political scenario of our country might not be smooth in near future as it is thought by many People in our country. The major fault of political system in our country is lack of mutual confidence among the active political parties. The ruling party and its allies are always in confrontation with oppositions agitating on the streets. The present generation whose age group is in between 25 and 30 even did not see the cordial political situation in their already passed life time. Even it is very much unknown whether they will have an experience of smooth political experience in near future. It is very much unfortunate that we all are passing such a political situation which is not ideal and acceptable to the level of minimum consensus.
Current trend in our political scenario is that ruling party is always chasing parties who agitate on the streets and the law-enforcing agencies are generally creating obstacles to make the programme successful of the parties agitating on the streets. But this should not be an ideal situation in our political culture. In a democratic state all the citizens of the country have the right to hold meetings, rallies following some directives introduced by the local authority. And it is also ensured in the constitution of Bangladesh. The articles 11, 37, 38, 39 of the constitution have underscored the rights of the citizens to organise public meetings, processions subject to a reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of public order or public health. But it is clearly understood that the spirit of the constitution is to allow all to exercise their fundamental rights.
Recently happened some incidents at Bhola, Narayanganj and Munshiganj may be mentioned for analysing the situations. We all know that opposition on the streets and some other political parties staged public meetings, processions in different places in Bangladesh for abnormal price hike of essentials and fuel. The case of Bhola as reported in the media says that opposition parties staged a gathering duly intimated to the District Police. After gathering the crowd wanted to start a procession through the Sadar road at Bhola town. But the law-enforcers made obstacle not to allow the crowd getting into the Sadar road. In this situation hot talks and brick throwing started. Then police started throwing tear shell and finally firing started by the police. As a result of this two persons were killed and several were injured. For this crisis or dilemma a serious deterioration of law and order situation created. But this situation might be avoided by a prudent decision of high-ups of district police. As there was not prevailing section 144 of CrPc police could allow the procession to proceed on to the Sadar road keeping strong vigilance to the procession not to be unruly. If that would have been done the procession might have been ended peacefully within a time span of one hour.
The incident of Narayanganj was like that of the incident of Munshiganj. Opposition organised procession to protest the price hike of essentials and fuel. For that reason they started gathering and after sometime a senior officer of the law-enforcing agency took away the banner of the procession. This action irked the crowd and a situation of brick/pebbles throwing evolved. Law-enforcers retaliated against that action by throwing tear shell and rubber bullets. Even an officer of the law-enforcing agency started shooting by Chines rifle. The picture was published in many national dallies in the next day of the incident. And it is also reported that officer was not the authorised holder of that rifle. As far as it is known by the press media that day 144 section of CrPc was not declared by the appropriate authority of that area. So in this case law-enforcers could allow the procession keeping strong vigilance on them so that no untoward incident happened. As a result of that incident two persons were killed as reported in the media. The whole situation indicates that there might have been a functional gap between District Administration and district police force. As Narayanganj not under the metropolitan police area district magistrate is the ultimate authority to maintain law and order with the district police.
Another incident happened at old ferry-ghat area on 21st September for the price hike of fuel and essentials and it was part of the opposition’s month-long programme. It is reported that workers of the opposition started assembling at the spot of Mukterpur ferry-ghat. Police told them not to assemble there and then the crowd went to old ferry-ghat area and started assembling there. There, a high official of district police clutched the banner of the crowd. For that the crowd went unruly and situation went beyond the control of police. Bricks/pebbles throwing from crowd’s side started and in response police started lathi-charge, tear shell and lastly opened fire. As a result of this consequence many people were injured including members of police force. Even some members of the force jumped into the water of the river nearby for saving their lives. Later it was known that one injured person was died while getting treatment into the hospital. This is all reported in the electronic media and newspapers.
If we analyse the whole scenario it seems that all these untoward incidents might be avoided if prudent steps taken by the law-enforcers. Even they could apply presence of mind to understand the crowd’s intention for not evolving such untoward incidents. As there was no declaration of section 144 of CrPc the law-enforcers could allow the crowd to complete their program. But they did not do so. Moreover, one of the high officials of district police clutched the banner of the crowd they held. Analysing this incident one can come to a conclusion that such incident might not happen and a life might not be lost if the law-enforcers would allow the crowd to end their programme. The action taken by the high-ranking law-enforcers on the spot created sensation and that turned crowd unruly. So in this case presence of mind and prudent decision was very important.
The constitution of Bangladesh ensures fundamental rights of all the citizens of the republic and it is the supreme law of the country. If there was any chance of deterioration of law and order the appropriate authority could impose section 144 of CrPc in that particular area or could impose concerned section of metropolitan police act in metropolitan police’s jurisdictions’. That would have been the right step to control the unruly crowd. Otherwise a peaceful crowd turning unruly for the imprudent decisions of the law-enforcers is not desirable. All those actions only deteriorate the institutional image of the law-enforcing agencies to the people. Hope good sense will act in the days to come.
(The writer is a former civil servant).
