AN ALARMING increase in mob violence in two months is disconcerting, especially because a major policy focus of the interim government is to improve law and order and to restore public trust in law enforcement. In August鈥揝eptember, after the fall of the Awami League regime, as Ain O Salish Kendra says, at least 49 people were killed in mob violence. In the corresponding period in 2023, the number of mob violence deaths was 10. In the past decade, partisan use of the police and the abuse of power in the judiciary have progressively eroded public trust in the legal system. Enforced disappearances, custodial torture, extrajudicial killing and the wholesale arrest of opposition people and dissenters continued without justice for the victims. In July 16鈥�21, when the deposed Awami League government allowed law enforcers to use lethal weapons against unarmed students and people, more than a thousand were killed and several thousand were injured. Public grievances and waning trust in the legal system, which has prompted them to engage in mob violence, are, therefore, situated in a larger context of the Awami League鈥檚 authoritarian rule. The context, however, does not create grounds to justify mob violence or help to restore public confidence in the legal system.
Mob violence has been a public concern. As Odhikar says, 1,150 incidents of mob violence occurred in 2009鈥�2019. In two months, reported incidents of mob violence have a retaliatory dimension, which became evident in the murder of a Chhatra League leader on the Jahangirnagar University campus. Public university campuses or local governments should have an action plan to attend to public anger to prevent retaliatory violence. The Jahangirnagar University administration is alleged not to have been prompt enough to act against the mob violence that left the former student dead on September 19. The delay in taking legal action against perpetrators of violence unleashed on student protesters during the July uprising and the incidents of many people allegedly involved in major financial crimes and illicit capital flow fleeing created scopes for retaliatory violence. In the past two months, travel bans were issued or bank accounts of people responsible for the July massacre or involved in other crimes were frozen after the accused had fled the country. Changes made to the secret detention centres apparently to destroy evidence, as the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances finds, have also contributed to the public trust deficit.
The interim government should, therefore, ensure that the incidents of recent mob violence are judiciously investigated and set a precedent against mob violence. More importantly, the government should develop a time-bound action plan elaborating on how law and order would be restored and the legal process through which perpetrators of the July massacre will be brought to justice.