No responsible govt can ignore mass misery of mass arrest

UNDER the special crackdown now in progress in the country against rising tide of secret killing, law enforcers detained more than 3192 people including 37 militants across the country in 48 hours ending on Saturday, besides detaining over 757 motorcycles from their possession. Latest arrest on Sunday stood at 5000. The number of arrest is rising every day by at least one thousand sending panic all over. It appears that law enforcers under pressure from above are arresting en masse. The real militants engaged in killing cannot be available easily to be arrested in thousands. Nobody should think that real militants are fools waiting to be arrested. It appears that when police are running after big number of arrest daily they are in fact working on a misleading plan to show that the government is doing something big to defeat extremists in response to international pressure. But Bangladesh is going through a terrible time as the number of target killing is on the rise. Four persons fell to killers’ machete from early June and the number stood at 40 from early last year. It is a situation for safety in public life and good governance. The disclosure of a senior police officer that the 37 perceived militants arrested in last two days showed no link with recent target killing may naturally raise question about the seriousness of huge number of indiscriminate arrest.If the government feels that they don’t have to bother about human rights violation and police may be ordered to arrest easily anybody it is most unfortunate for the people of a free country. Not only the arrested people are affected, their families and dependents are made to suffer. The people who are so freely arrested are mostly poor and their families are denied income source for survival. No government has any right to cause mass misery.  Identity of three thousands people arrested show 1861 were accused in earlier police cases, 917 normal persons having no culpability records, 358 are drug addicts and 19 accused are firearms cases. One thing that no high political leader will disagree that determined militants are not frightened by mass arrest involving many innocent persons. There will be anger among innocent ones arrested and among the people in the neighbourhood. We know the government will only listen to the hired advisers, but not others, so let them prove successful.