The chaos that police cannot easily defuse

THE people of Brahmanbaria have become panicked again this time with filing of ten cases against a total of over 7000 unknown accused for violence and massive destruction of property in the town including setting fire on the Railway Station, local markets and socio-cultural organizations in Tuesday’s mayhem that terrorized the town overnight. Local people are now facing terror of arrest and a situation in which they have to save them from arrest business.
As news reports said the incident started with a stifling matter between some local Madrasha students and a mobile shop vendors and it could be easily minimized if local ruling party men did not entangle them and police timely intervened to disperse the growing crowd. The chaos spread throughout the town when a local Madrasha student died in police assault and his friends claimed he was beaten and pushed to the ground from the roof of the Madrasha building by police at night while scores of others were also tortured.
It appears highly shocking if the allegations were correct that police joined the local ruling party men and broke open the closed gate of the Madrasha compound to raid on the residential buildings. They have also indiscriminately fired on the students. The ruling party however blamed the opposition activists for spreading the violence.
We are however particularly concerned about what role police had played; whether they tried to defuse the violence; which could save the life of the student and valuable public and private property or played into the hands of the ruling party men. We believe that the police administration must properly investigate into the role of police and particularly if they had helped the ruling party men in the mayhem. If it were true, they have invariably participated in the crime and must be held accountable for it.
We know police have been taught and trained how to act as custodian of peace and safety of ordinary people. But the spot reports suggest their role was otherwise and ruling party men had exploited their cover. Its cost was enormous. Alone the destruction at Brahmanbaria Railway Station left the railway service to Chittagong and Sylhet suspended for the day while the destruction to some cultural organizations also can hardly be replaced.
We know police is under political pressure and not so free to deal with untoward events. We however appreciate the initial steps of the police administration for withdrawal of two local police officers who could have averted the chaos. The withdrawal of countrywide hartal as the Madrasha teachers have called for is also appreciable. But what is important is that undue police harassment to local people for alleged involvement in the violence must stop. Normalcy to the town will not return unless arrest on suspicion comes to a stop.