Under their own rule, the law-and-order situation has collapsed, with records of murder, rape, mob killings and enforced disappearances. Yet the Home Minister stands on a stage, boasting about eliminating the Awami League and even announcing rewards for doing so.
From February to September, in just seven months, 21,756 cases were filed across seven categories. There were 1,789 murders and 11,165 cases of violence against women and children. There were 317 attacks on police. Between January and August, there were 339 reported rapes, including 114 gang rapes, and 41 cases in which victims were killed after rape. In June, 31 people were killed in mob violence, followed by another 28 deaths in August. According to HRSS, political violence during January-June resulted in 56 deaths and 5,246 injuries across 830 incidents. Forty-four members of minority communities were killed. A total of 383 journalists were subjected to harassment or attacks. In August alone, 87 unidentified bodies were recovered from rivers, canals and wooded areas.
Against this backdrop, the Home Minister’s biggest concern appears to be offering rewards for catching so-called Awami League collaborators. It is as if roses are being handed out on a blood-soaked battlefield. The minister boasts about police intelligence, yet deaths in police custody, enforced disappearances and the deaths of 58 people in prisons do not appear to be part of the accounting on his desk.
The condition of Bangladesh during the BNP-Jamaat government from 2001 to 2006, including political killings, enforced disappearances, persecution of minorities and corruption, cannot simply be erased from the pages of history. Now back in power, the BNP has demonstrated within just seven months that it has not returned to govern, but to seek revenge.
How deep must political bankruptcy become before a government announces its intention to completely eliminate the very political party through whose leadership Bangladesh was born? This is a country named in the legacy of Sheikh Mujib, yet the Home Minister is announcing rewards for eliminating the very party associated with that struggle. And the BNP itself now knows that the election held in February, after excluding the Awami League, was inherently illegitimate.
Maintaining law and order is the responsibility of the Home Ministry. When a minister, having failed to fulfill that responsibility, instead begins announcing rewards for political arrests, it becomes clear that, for this government, the safety and security of the people are not the priority. Political retaliation is.
