Horror of extra-judicial killing

THE most anguished and horror filled aspect of life in Bangladesh occurs when people are killed by police in crossfire without any fear of accountability. News media reported that the extra-judicial killing has got a new label — “infighting” to do the old jobs of law enforcement agencies — killing opposition men without placing them before the court of law.
The new script of the gunfight that law enforcers send to news media is identical — law enforcers found a gunshot body with arms, drugs and ammunition — though the victims’ relatives said they were arrested by law enforcers. Unfortunately, the State itself has become a source of threat to the citizens in the situation of police excesses.
 What happened with Anisur Rahman of Satkhira’s Kolaroa upazila who was picked up on May 28 by two police officials in front of his wife Nazma is blurry. The next day police said the man was killed in a gunfight between two groups of drug traders. According to Nazma, Assistant Sub-Inspectors Ezaz Mahmud and Toriqul Islam of Khurdo Police Outpost and some others handcuffed and blindfolded her husband before her but both the ASIs denied picking him up. In all the “infighting” incidents like Anisur, police claimed that they went to the spot hearing gunshots and recovered bodies, drugs, and firearms from the scene. Police came up with almost similar narratives after deaths of at least 50 out of the 241 suspected drug traders killed since the anti-narcotics drive began on May 4. Seventeen of them were killed in Jashore alone while four each were killed in Magura, Satkhira, Cox’s Bazar, and Mymensingh. Family members of most of those deceased point fingers at law enforcers as their near ones were killed hours or days after plainclothes men, claiming to be cops, picked them up.
 Rights activists said “infighting” is a new narrative for extra-judicial killings as law enforcers’ narratives of “shootouts”, “crossfires” or “gunfights” have become clichés over the years. However, the so-called shootouts are still going on.