CLASHES in two places in Rangpur and in Shariatpur, one between followers of local Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders and the other between followers of local Awami League leaders, over supremacy the same day are unfortunate. The clashes show that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is bent on power assumption in elections that could be forthcoming after having been held on a tight spot for about a decade and a half, and the Awami League, which has faced an ignominious overthrow in a student-led mass uprising, which it tried to quell with violence, after having governed the country for about a decade and a half in an authoritarian manner, have not learnt from their past mistakes. The parties which have governed the country for most of the time since independence by turn have almost always engaged in violence so much so that violence has become deeply ingrained in the party structure. After the political changeover of August 2024, which has showed that violence, even carried to a farther point, cannot pay, it was expected that the two parties would do some soul-searching and resort to corrected courses. Unfortunately, they have not so done.
In the Rangpur incident, a man who became injured in clashes that broke out at Badarganj on April 5 between the followers of two local leaders over a dispute concerning renting out a space and running a shop there, died in Rangpur Medical College Hospital. More than a dozen were wounded. In the Shariatpur incident, more than two dozen became wounded in the clashes that broke out at Jazira the same day between followers of an Awami League leader and a leader of Awami Swechchhasebak League, the volunteers鈥� wing of the Awami League. While the number of the wounded could be higher, as many are reported to have been treated in various health facilities, as the police say, one of them was critically wounded but he had left the hospital to avoid being arrested. What has marked the Shariatpur clash is that the police say that several hundred crude bombs, having been carried to the ground in buckets, were exploded, literally turning the area into a battleground, leaving people heavily panicked. It, therefore, appears that the political changeover that came about through protests and the consequent uprising that spanned more than a month has hardly been able to make two major political parties learn from their past mistakes.
Whilst the parties should learn to rein in their leaders, activists and followers, the government should take legal action against the people responsible for the clashes. The interim government, working reforms in various sectors, should see to this for an effective, healthy political culture.