What happened at the Radda MCH-FP Centre in Mirpur was not merely another land dispute. It raised a larger and more troubling question: can political influence still shield people from accountability?
For nearly five decades, the centre has provided healthcare services to poor mothers and children. Yet, in the early hours of 25 September, a large group stormed the Mirpur-1 facility, held security guards hostage, looted medicine, vaccines, medical equipment, furniture and other property and used heavy machinery to demolish the premises.
The attack quickly acquired a political dimension. Locals and officials at the health facility alleged links between those involved and people associated with reserved-seat MP Ferdousi Ahmed Misty. Misty denied involvement.
Police have so far arrested 12 people. The officer-in-charge of Shah Ali Police Station was also withdrawn amid questions over the initial response.
Against this backdrop, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s intervention on Thursday was significant. According to the prime minister’s press wing, he directed Misty to resign from parliament. Subsequently, within a matter of hours, Misty resigned.
So, thank you, Prime Minister. This was definitely a step in the right direction.
Not because resignation proves guilt. Criminal responsibility must be established through evidence, investigation and due process.
What matters is the principle: political office must never become a shield from scrutiny.
Bangladesh does not need accountability in one high-profile case alone. It needs a standard that applies to everyone, including those in the ruling party.
The Radda attack provoked such anger because of its sheer brazenness.
Losses exceeded Tk1 crore. The main structure and three semi-permanent buildings were demolished. Signboards bearing the name of Samomona Dokandar Samabay Samity Ltd were later erected on the premises.
This was not simply damage to property. It was an assault on a healthcare facility serving poor women and children. After the attack, limited vaccination services resumed under temporary tarpaulin shelters.
More disturbing still, Radda was not an isolated episode.
In the span of roughly three days, Dhaka witnessed at least four incidents involving attacks, vandalism, looting or alleged attempts to take control of property. On 26 September, around 150 to 200 people descended on a disputed plot at Chand Udyan Housing in Mohammadpur, broke down fencing, vandalised an office and allegedly removed cash and other valuables before putting up new fencing around the land.
Hours earlier, in Adabor’s Shyamoli Housing, a group of 15 to 20 men, some carrying machetes and other weapons, attacked a multi-storey residential building in what police described as an alleged attempt to take control of the property.
That same night, two truckloads of people attacked and vandalised content creator Salman Muqtadir’s studio at ECB Chattar.
Taken together, the incidents created more than the impression of a few unrelated property disputes. They revived a familiar public fear: that force, political connections and organised muscle can once again be used to settle disputes, seize property or intimidate those standing in the way.
The concern became serious enough for 38 eminent citizens to issue a joint statement warning of a rise in attacks, land and house grabbing, and extortion allegedly carried out through political and muscle power. They called for impartial investigations and accountability, citing the Radda attack, the Mohammadpur incident and the attack on Salman Muqtadir’s studio among recent examples.
That fear has deep roots.
Bangladesh has spent years paying the price for weak institutions, politically influenced lending, abuse of public resources and regulatory failure.
The White Paper on the State of the Bangladesh Economy estimated that illicit financial outflows averaged about $16 billion a year between 2009 and 2023. It also put distressed banking assets at more than Tk6.75 lakh crore at the end of FY24.
The report pointed to fraudulent lending, forced bank takeovers, politically influenced loans, inflated project costs and illicit financial outflows among the ways in which institutions and public resources were weakened.
The scale of those findings illustrated how destructive the political capture of institutions can become.
The point is not that the Radda attack or the other recent property-related incidents are comparable in scale with the banking scandals, capital flight or corruption cases of the previous decade and a half.
The point is that they spring from the same danger: political influence weakening institutions.
Impunity does not begin with a billion-dollar scandal. It begins when police hesitate, complaints involving powerful people stall, investigations lose momentum and political identity starts to matter more than evidence.
That is why the Prime Minister’s decision matters. And it also creates a benchmark for his own government.
Ordering an MP to resign is a political act. It cannot replace an investigation, prosecution or judicial process. If evidence establishes criminal responsibility, the law must take its course. If allegations cannot be proven, that too must be acknowledged.
The principle is simple: equality before the law.
Political affiliation must neither protect an accused person nor be treated as evidence of guilt. Police and administrative officials who fail in their duties should face scrutiny on the basis of evidence. Land grabbing, extortion, vandalism, looting and violent occupation should be confronted whether those accused belong to the government, the opposition or no political party at all.
The same protection must extend to institutions serving ordinary people. Hospitals, schools, charitable organisations, homes and businesses cannot be allowed to become prizes in struggles over land or political influence.
The government now has an opportunity to show that accountability will not depend on who is named in an allegation or which party that person belongs to.
That will take more than one resignation.
It will require investigations that are completed instead of quietly buried, cases that move on evidence rather than political convenience and police and regulators willing to act even when powerful people are involved.
For citizens who have watched years of banking distress, capital flight, corruption allegations and institutional weakness, that is the real test.
The Prime Minister’s intervention in the Radda case is a welcome first step because it signals an important principle: political office should not place anyone beyond scrutiny.
What matters now is consistency.
If the same standard is applied to ministers, MPs, party leaders, opposition figures, businesspeople and local power brokers alike, the Radda case may come to represent something larger than one controversy.
If not, it will remain an exception.
Thank you, Prime Minister, for setting the standard.
Now make it the rule.
