THE government is still showing an unwillingness to bring those responsible for the death of more than 200 students and people, including at least 16 children, mostly in indiscriminate police firing during the student protests to justice. The government is still continuing with the wholesale arrest of students and people in cases of ‘vandalism and violence’. The law enforcement agencies have already arrested more than 10,000 students, opposition leaders and activists and people in more than 500 cases filed by the police and ruling party leaders. Among the arrested and detained are dozens of minor students, too. All this shows reluctance on part of the government to bring those responsible to justice and an ill intent to pass the blame for its brutal action on the protesters. In the first information report in a number of cases, including the one over the death of Begum Rokeya University student Abu Sayeed, the police have accused 2,000–3,000 protesters. The reports on the Abu Sayeed murder case drew huge criticism from people of all walks. When a number of video footage show that Abu Sayeed was killed in police firing and he was shot at a close range, such a report is nothing short of an insult to people’s intelligence and their demand for justice.
The police also reportedly accused a Class XI student in the Abu Sayeed murder case and arrested him as the family of the accused claim. The police on knowing that the arrested is a minor, later denied it and claimed that the minor was arrested in a vandalism case. The demand for justice has, meanwhile, intensified with a cross section of democratically-oriented people, including teachers, parents, civil society actors, lawyers, journalists, expatriates and cultural organisations, joining in and expressing solidarity with the demand for justice for the killings during the protests. On July 31, hundreds of people expressed solidarity with protesters and joined the March for Justice that included marches towards courts and rallies, demanding United Nations investigation into the mass killings and an end to wholesale arrest in false and fabricated cases. Protesters also pressed their nine-point demands that include an unconditional apology from the prime minister by taking responsibility for the recent killing, the removal of certain ministers from government and their expulsion from the ruling party, the sacking of police officials responsible for the killing and their trial. The students once again met police highhandedness. Over a couple of dozen were detained and injured as law enforcers shot tear-gas shells and charged at them with truncheons in some places. Parents, teachers and cultural activists also held rallies separately in solidarity with the protesters.
The government should realise that the police cases and the wholesale arrest are an insult to people and their growing demand for justice and these will only further intensify the movement. The government should, therefore, heed students’ demands, stop the wholesale arrest and abandon highhandedness.
