Nasima Kadir Mollah High School and Homes in Narsingdi has become the best of the country’s best educational institutions in terms of earning academic excellence in this year’s SSC exam results. Bogura Zila School has scored best in Rajshahi Education Board. Or heart-touching story of Nibir Karmaker, a student from Chattogram Education Board, who has obtained 1,285 out of 1,300 marks in this year’s SSC results! What an outstandingly brilliant and distinctive achievement Nibir has made! Such stories in the mass media and in cyberspace resonate deeply within my heart and mind as they evoke great feelings of sentimentality, as they signify feelings of warmth. Yet, the failure of more or less 50 students of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College to pass in this public exam, the institution that has the ‘no-fail school’ moniker, has shocked us, let alone six needless suicides after SSC results.
Amid all those tidings came a ghoulish one, the one that made us feel nausea. It came to us as a great shocker. We became sickened by an animated picture of a hellish play with a young scrap wire trader in Dhaka’s street on July 9. That stomach-churning savagery made us feel creepy that a beastly, killer instinct is deeply rooted in the blood of this bloody nation when we think of a demonic sight of the budding businessman being killed by miscreants on a busy road in broad daylight and in full public glare! That tragedy struck outside Sir Salimullah Medical College and Mitford Hospital. According to latest media reports, the murder is the result of an acrimonious dispute between rival groups over the control of an illicit scrap copper wire and metal business.
The nation witnessed two other disturbing reports on Friday—the murder of a former Juba Dal leader by some goons in Khulna and a sudden attack on a septuagenarian Islamic scholar, Maulana Nurul Amin Madani, in Chandpur. A rabid musalli attacked the imam with a lethal weapon as being opposed to his khutba (Friday’s religious sermon) delivery inside a mosque. All these incidents have spawned widespread public outrage and condemnation, and demonstrated a damning indictment of a slide in the law-and-order situation. All these incidents have raised a sixty-four thousand dollar question: Has this beautiful Bangladesh really become uninhabitable! The answer is not so far to seek. We have become so greedy, so power-hungry and so merciless. How dirt cheap and unsafe is our life in streets!
Another question has come to the fore: The Midford incident happened on Wednesday before sundown, but the mass media in Bangladesh brought this murder to light after 48 hours—that too only after a video footage of the incident went viral on Friday. The public wants an answer.
The phrase “Humans are becoming beasts” refers to the increasing brutality, violence and a lack of human values in society. It is a fitting metaphor that draws attention to animalistic behaviour and mindless actions in humans. It is considered as a symbol of societal degradation, moral decline and the deterioration of human relationships. When a man becomes cruel, he turns into a beast or more than a beast. A tiger does not kill another tiger or a lion does not kill another lion. But when a man becomes derailed and unprincipled, he becomes ruthless in his determination to retaliate and hit back. Netizens could not concentrate on work all day after seeing the viral video of this tragic scene of the hapless Chand Mia alias Sohag on Facebook. Voices have been raised for the dispensation of justice.
The developments now unfolding before our eyes are not isolated ones. These incidents have possible links. Police and other law-enforcement agencies are in place to find the missing links. But the apparent links are vendetta, retaliation, dominance and madness for money and power. Awami League mastans (miscreants) have disappeared from the scene, but the field is now occupied by other groups of goons. No surprise. In the meantime, many BNP adherents said the political achievements of 17 years should not be destroyed because of a few scoundrels. We demand not just expulsion but speedy justice. We request our dear leader that no expelled leader involved in real crimes should be reinstated in the party. Action must also be taken against senior leaders who shelter criminals.
Rowdies have been engaged in a spate of extortion and doing so remorselessly since August 5, 2024. If it is not possible to bury extortion now, the grave of the July uprising will be dug. One thing is visible that during the murder of sewing machinist Biswajit, the leaders of the past regime remained silent instead of protesting at the gory incident. However, BNP did not tread the same path. Leaders and activists from across the country are protesting and demanding justice. The party has been prompt in its action against deranged activists through expelling those involved in the killing of scrap dealer Sohag.
Meanwhile, university students have been demonstrating on their campuses in condemnation of the killing. Other political entities are also doing the same for justice. NCP convener Nahid Islam on Friday night said the country is witnessing renewed violence by criminals, coercers and troublemakers instead of building a new Bangladesh.
The latest development is the expulsion of four activists of the BNP-affiliated wings following allegations of their direct complicity in the killing. In separate statements issued on Friday evening, Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal, Chhatra Dal and Swechchhasebak Dal confirmed the lifetime expulsion of Pintu, Laki, Apu Das and Kalu. We know terrorists have no ideology, no politics. For any crime, arrest must be ensured as per law and maximum punishment be ensured. The state machinery must wake up to act before everything is finished. How long will mob and pressure group last in Bangladesh? Who knows?