A GATHERING of people, reported to have been falsely promised loans, converging from across the country at Shahbagh in Dhaka on November 25 prompted police intervention. The city police say that the organisers had promised the people, mostly low-income people from villages, help in getting more than Tk 100,000 in loans without interest and brought them to join the rally, which an organisation by the name of Non-Violent Mass Uprising Bangladesh told the participants was also meant to push for the legislation to repatriate laundered money. In another incident on the day, at least 100 people became wounded in a series of clashes involving students of three colleges in Dhaka 鈥� Kabi Nazrul College, Shaheed Suhrawardy College and Dr Mahbubur Rahman Molla College 鈥� as more than 20,000 students of the colleges had clashed at and around Mahbubur Rahman Molla College for four hours, halting traffic in adjacent areas and the operation of buses on the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway. A group of people, banded as Alem-Ulema O Tauhidi Janata, on the day also attacked the Prothom Alo office in Rajshahi after such a gathering near the office of Prothom Ali and the Daily Star in Dhaka for two days. In yet another incident that day, at least 25 people became injured as students of the Dhaka Polytechnic Institute and the Bangladesh University of Textile clashed at Tejgaon.
A number of such incidents taking place simultaneously appears to have put the government at unease. The government that day said that it had suspected a conspiracy at play behind the clashes and other chaotic incidents happening in Dhaka and elsewhere. Referring to the incident of people having been brought to Dhaka in the name of giving loans and the clashes involving the students of the three colleges, the information adviser to the interim government at a press conference at the Foreign Service Academy has said that many quarters, which include the elements of the fascist Awami League, want the government to fail and work to create trouble in the functioning of the government. The local government adviser to the government has said that an investigation has been set up to establish what was happening around, sounding a warning that students should clash neither with the law enforcement agencies nor with one another. He has also noted that the vandalism of any newspaper office or pressure to close newspapers would not be tolerated. He says that there are peaceful ways to make complaints heard. It is the government which smells conspiracy, which might be correct. It is, therefore, the government which should investigate the incidents of the day and other such incidents that have taken place on other days to establish and root out the conspiracy.
The government should, in such a situation, set up credible investigations to find out the individuals and entities at play behind such conspiracy to make the functioning of the government easy and to make public life peaceful. On having established the conspiracy and the entities at play, the government should take lawful action against them.
