THE prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s call on people to help identify the ‘culprits’ involved in the mayhem, born out of the peaceful student protests seeking reforms in civil service job reservations, makes sense. While she sought people’s support in holding the culprits to justice, she said that the culprits, in whatever corner they are staying, would need to be identified. We, at ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·, also believe that the culprits who are actually responsible for the mayhem, which has so far left more than 200 people dead, need to be identified and brought to justice. But the question remains: who decides and who defines who the culprits are? The prime minister, who on July 26 visited the Bangladesh Television station to see the extent of damage and Dhaka Medical College Hospital to inquire about the injured and supervise their treatment, spoke of only the damage done to physical establishments and vehicles and the death of seven activists of the Chhatra League, which is the student wing of the ruling Awami League.
But what about the death of more than 200 people, many of whom are students who took to the streets peacefully to press home a legitimate cause of reforms in civil service job reservations, and, mostly, of the poor people? The legitimacy of the cause became manifest in court verdicts that drastically brought down the percentage of job reservations. The peaceful protests, however, entered a violent phase only after the Chhatra League and the Juba League, aided by the police, had attacked the unarmed protesters at the provocation of the Awami League’s general secretary, also the roads and bridges minister, and at the order of the home minister. The border guards were deployed on July 19 and the army was called in aid of civil administration, along with the imposition of a curfew, on July 19. The attacks by the Chhatra League and Juba League on the protesters, the police brutality and the high-handedness of all law enforcement units deployed to contain the peaceful protests left such a large number of people dead and a far larger number of people wounded, many of whom had to face amputation. This is also to see as to how much vandalism could be attributed to the grievances of the protesters and how much it was an act of sabotage by the ruling party activists. A Sramik League leader was arrested at a place in Chattogram on charges of setting buses on fire. Who, in such a situation, constitutes the culprits? The people who died, the people who became wounded, the people who faced amputation or the people who faced repression and harassment? Or, are the culprits the people who barbarously attacked the protesters, fired at the protesters, most of whom were students of universities, colleges and schools, and carried out the repression and the harassment?
The culprits of the mayhem born out of the protests must be brought to justice. Those who attacked the protesters must be identified as culprits and duly punished. The League people and the law enforcers who unlawfully fired into the students must be punished. It is of utmost importance to ensure justice thus to heal the wounds that the whole violent episode has left.
