Road safety demonstrators suffer

Prothom Alo’s headline on 18 April newspaper reads: “Police harass students of safe road movement.”

As many as 60 cases were filed against the students demonstrating for road safety in July last year, according to the Prothom Alo report. In some cases the allegations were as serious as rioting with deadly weapons, obstructing government duty, attacks on police, vandalism of police vehicles, attempt to set fire to Badda police outpost and so on.

The allegations were grave. At least 22 students were arrested in those cases. They were granted bail within a few days after the arrests though. Now the police are investigating the cases.

It is their responsibility to find who tried to set fire to the police station and who were involved in the other crimes.

The cases are raised in court every month only to be adjourned for the next date as the police are yet to submit the investigation reports to the court.

The accused students have to appear before the court on every month as well. Otherwise their bail may be cancelled. Police say they are not finding any evidence of students’ involvement in the incidents, but the investigation continues. As long as the investigation continues, the students will have to turn up in the court on ‘new’ dates every month. These students’ are stuck and who knows how many days they will remain in this situation.

The criminal justice system has become a deplorable means to suppress dissent and criticism in our country. The criminal justice system is a deadly weapon of state in almost all countries. The weapon is used by the state in good purpose in most cases. It is used to prevent crime, to find the criminals, and to investigate and find evidence against the accused to produce before court for trial. Sometimes the power is abused or misused. Several innocent people are detained. Those who criticise the government become often victims but this still remains as an exception in those countries.

However, in Bangladesh this exception has become a rule since October 2002, as far as I can recall.
The demonstrators demanding safe road did not want to harm anyone. They wanted to do something good for the society, even if for at least a day.

Their only only wish was to ensure a safe roads so that nobody dies an unduly on the roads and people can return home safely at the end of the day. Nobody found anything offensive in their demand and movement. However, our criminal justice system, nowadays, intends to ruin anything that is good for all. Therefore, those who wanted to do good for the society are now brought to their knees in the name of police investigations.

Had it been an ideal state, then the investigation officer would come to the conclusion that they could not find any evidence against the accused even after investigating for nearly 10 months. That is, the charges brought against these 22 students have not been proved.

Therefore, the investigating officer can plea to the court to exempt the 22 students from the cases. But that will be nothing but pipe dream.

The law enforcement agencies in a civilised, democratic and lawful country will never harass people. These accused 22 students of safe road movement may be victims of state oppression for a long time. It seems the state is out to oppress its people.

*Shahdeen Malik is a Supreme Court lawyer and teaches law at the University of Asia Pacific. This piece appeared in Prothom Alo print edition and has been rewritten in English by Farjana Liakat