There's a saying that Bangalees are easily satisfied. In a speech, Maulana Bhashani mentioned, ‘The people of this country would be happy just having rice and lentils twice a day. ’ The maulana, while engaging in politics, roamed the markets, fields, and public places, mingling with people. He observed that many don't even manage to get simple rice and lentils twice a day.
The country faced a food crisis and mismanagement. Silent famine lingered throughout the year. During the 1954 elections, Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq, better known as ‘Sher-e-Bangla’ and president of the Jukta Front (United Front), promised in public meetings that they would ensure rice and lentils for everyone if elected.
Common people didn’t read the manifesto or understand the politics of agendas; they voted for the United Front, hoping for dal-bhat (rice and lentils). The opposite is also true. Some cannot avail even a simple meal, while others, despite having abundant wealth, cannot curb their greed.
People do whatever it takes to survive. Some struggle from dawn till dusk but can’t arrange a day’s meal, while others are desperate to seize money or assets earned from others' hard labour and sweat. In pursuing this, they attack and even commit murder. How many lives are lost due to the negligence or carelessness of those responsible for the citizens’ welfare? Individuals kill individuals, and so does the state its citizens.
Last Monday, I was reading Prothom Alo. The news was just heart-wrenching. Reporter Shishir Morol mentioned that 11 more children died of measles. This brings the total death toll from measles or related symptoms to 409, as reported by the health department.
Recently, measles infection has increased, revealing negligence in vaccination efforts. The interim government is blamed for this, and the current government’s blaming of the previous one is also not acceptable. Can our health infrastructure really handle such widespread outbreaks?
Our officials fly to the UK at the slightest sneeze! To prevent measles infection and deaths, the government has launched a nationwide vaccination campaign. According to the Rapid Convenience Monitoring (RCM) by UNICEF, 30 to 40 per cent of city-area children and 15 per cent of rural-area children have not been vaccinated yet.
We’ve termed the killings occurring day after day, year after year, on roads due to state mistakes or mismanagement, as ‘road accidents. ’ Thousands perish in these accidents annually, and many are permanently disabled.
Road accidents have become routine. Monday’s (11 May) news showed accidents in the districts of Brahmanbaria, Bogura, Cumilla, Habiganj, and Rajbari. Some died being crushed by trucks, others lost their lives driving motorcycles.
There was a safe roads movement in 2018. The government at the time viewed it with suspicion, seeing conspiracies in the actions of protesting schoolchildren. Even the innocent and legitimate demand to ensure safe roads for pedestrians and passengers became politicised.
The desire to snatch even a trivial item can make people extremely violent, as seen in the murder of 46-year-old tea seller Kulsum in Gazipur. There was a robbery attempt because they believed she had money and gold ornaments. On the incident day, the accused tried to sedate her with sleeping pills and later killed her with indiscriminate machete blows. After the murder, the attackers fled with cash and some jewelry, which they later found out were not real gold.
Nine months ago, 17-year-old Yasin Arafat from Narayanganj’s Siddhirganj was murdered. He was an O-Level student in an English medium school. He went missing the evening of 11 August last year when he left home to buy medicine for his mother. Two days later, his body was found in the DND canal. The Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) said Yasin was killed due to a mistaken suspicion of an extramarital relationship.
In the early hours of Sunday (10 May), three people were beaten to death in Kaliakoir’s Fulbari union of Bagchala bazaar area over accusations of cow theft. An angry mob set a pickup van on fire during the incident. What would you call this ‘angry mob’? Frustrated over losing cattle, or just a mob?
Our rivers no longer receive silt but accumulate sand at the bottom. This sand is valuable, needed for constructing homes, roads, bridges, and dams. It’s obtained for free from rivers. Extracting sand requires no investment, just the cost of extraction and transportation. Fighting over sand extraction or leases from sandbars is a daily occurrence.
In Manikganj’s Shibaloy upazila’s Alokdia area, there was yet another shooting incident over disputes involving sand lifting with dredges on the Jamuna River. Earlier, on 3 April, in a dispute over sand lifting on the Jamuna, Alokdia’s Teota sand leasing company manager Merajul Islam was shot and hacked to death.
This week’s most gruesome event occurred in Rautkona village in Gazipur’s Kapasia upazila. Police recovered the bodies of a woman, her three daughters, and a brother from a house in this village. After this incident, the woman’s husband is on the run. Locals say the woman, named Sharmin Akter, was tied up by her hands to a window grill in a room. She was dressed in a new saree. Her face was wrapped with tape, mostly obscured with black cloth, with bloodstains on the wall behind her. Why? Poverty, dowry, extramarital affairs, marital disputes, mental illness, or something else? Killing over trivial excuses seems to have turned into a game!
Nowadays, death threats are openly issued. Some, protected by political connections, remain untouchable. Last Saturday afternoon in Chittagong, a person named Mobarak Hossain alias Imon threatened senior reporter Biplob Dey Partha of ''Bangla TV’s Chittagong office, with shooting if Tk 5 million was not paid within 24 hours. Biplob Dey is also the acting general secretary of the Central Committee of Janmashtami celebration council.
Imon is known as an associate of Sajjad Ali alias Boro Sajjad, a fugitive terrorist abroad. In a WhatsApp audio message, Imon told Biplob, "You’ll be shot so many times that your family won’t even be able to count the bullets. Whatever you have to do, do it within the next 24 hours. Bullets don’t recognise people."
This is just one example of extortion. Numerous such incidents occur daily. Extortionists are sometimes identified terrorists, or local leaders of political parties.
Here, I’ve mentioned merely a few incidents reported in a single day’s newspaper. There’s no doubt that compiling reports from all newspapers for a whole week would present a horrifying picture. The country witnesses rampant operations of miscreants. Rice and lentils are no longer that precious. Fighting and killings have become commonplace incidents.
#Mohiuddin Ahmad is a writer and researcher.
*The opinions expressed here are the author's own.
#This article, originally published in Prothom Alo print and online editions, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam