THE police on August 13 arrested Salman F Rahman, who was the private industries and investment adviser to the deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and Anisul Huq, who was law minister in the deposed prime minister鈥檚 cabinet, at Sadarghat in Dhaka reportedly when they were trying to flee using a boat. Student protests for reforms in civil service job reservations that later became a student-mass uprising after the ruling party people and various law enforcement units had attacked the protesters finally on August 5 resulted in the overthrow of the authoritarian rule of the Awami League, which had been in office for consecutive terms since 2009. After Sheikh Hasina fled the country that day, Awami League people have since then have reportedly been on the run or in hiding to avoid arrest and mob鈥檚 wrath. The police, who initially said that the two had been arrested in a case lodged with the New Market police in Dhaka, later in a release said that they had arrested the two in two cases filed on July 17 in connection with the clashes that took place in the Science Laboratory crossing the previous day that left two 鈥� a Dhaka College student who is reported to be a Chhatra League activist and a hawker 鈥� dead.
What remains inadequate is the cases in which they have been shown arrested. The New Market police say that the cases, one filed by a victim鈥檚 brother and the other by the mother of the other victim, named an unspecified number of unnamed people, as the police are often reported to have done in similar incidents in the past. The cases that are filed in this manner also do not have much merit as the number of the accused remains large and the accused remain unnamed. The arrest of the two in such cases is, therefore, inadequate compared with what happened around and during the protests. Salman F Rahman, the vice-chair of the Beximco Group, became adviser on January 15, 2019 and Anisul Huq had been law minister of the Awami League government for three tenures beginning with January 9, 2014 and the tenures that began in 2018 and 2014. They have more responsibilities to shoulder for the mayhem born out of student protests, which left at least 376 people, including students and other protesters, dead and several thousand wounded, mostly in firing, between July 16 and August 5. The two and others in Hasina鈥檚 government who advised and ordered attacks on the protesters with party people and law enforcement units in their efforts to cling to the power should, therefore, also be arrested in cases with specific charges and tried.
The government, in such a situation, would do better if it charge them, the two at hand and others, with specific offences and crimes so that they all are adequately punished.