Commentary: Police Brutality
by Rahnuma Ahmed
TWO hartals, in quick succession. During both, police forces deployed
were brutal, as the photos reveal.
The similarity ends there, because the hartal called by the National
Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports was
for six hours (July 3). It was called in protest against the
government's contract with ConocoPhillips signed on June 16; the deal
awarded gas exploration and extraction rights to the US energy giant
in two deep sea blocks in the Bay of Bengal. The national committee's
demand? That the deal should be scrapped because it allows Bangladesh
to have only 20 per cent of the gas, it permits the company to export
the remaining 80 per cent. That under these conditions, the
deal—similar to other deals signed by the government with
multinational companies—goes against the national interest.
The hartal called by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies,
for 48 hours (eight times more, July 6-7), was in protest against the
recent 15th amendment of the constitution which includes scrapping the
provision for a caretaker government—under which parliamentary
elections are held—a one-and-half-decade-long practice in Bangladesh.
Both major political parties are prone to shifting their position 180
degrees on the caretaker government issue depending on whether they
are in, or out of, power. There is no credible reason to think that
the Awami League would have assented to the scrapping if it had been
in the opposition. Or, to forget the long drawn-out manoeuvrings of
the BNP-Jamaat led government many months before national elections
were due in 2007, ones that were calculated to ensure foolproof
rigging. In other words, to lead to the BNP-Jamaat led government's
re-election.
As Nurul Kabir insists, the nation is held hostage because the two
major political parties have not been able to work out the 'rules of
the game', i.e. the elementary fact that at the end of its term the
ruling government must necessarily hold free, fair and credible
parliamentary elections, that it should have the political maturity to
accept the people's verdict. No doubt difficult, because each ruling
party knows without a single trace of doubt—even though it is loath to
admit it publicly—that the people's verdict will throw it out of
power. Because of its miserable five-year performance. Because of
reneging on its own electoral pledges.
In other words, the July 6-7 hartal called by the BNP and its allies
was over partisan interests, for which both parties are equally to
blame. Fifteen years is a long time.
There was another small matter. The Islami Andolon Bangladesh called
for a daylong general strike on July 3, protesting against what they
termed the removal of 'Absolute Faith and Trust in Allah' from the
constitution. The national oil and gas committee alleged that this was
deliberate, that 'the ruling alliance was using its Islamist allies'
to 'mislead the people' (New Age, July 2). An allegation not off the
mark given the state minister for home Shamsul Hoque Tuku's
preposterous claim that calling a hartal on the same day 'proves [that
there is] no difference between their ideologies.' That both the
national committee and the IAB serve the interest of their 'foreign
masters' (The Daily Sun, July 4).
These attempts at misleading, however, fell flat on their face. The
IAB was not seen to undertake any activity in the capital in support
of its strike (New Age July 4). And Tuku, too, was noticeably silent
when journalists asked him whether the government would initiate an
investigation into the national committee's activities, for after all,
serving the interests of foreign masters is a serious matter.
Maybe, he remembered, albeit belatedly, last December's WikiLeaked
revelations of Dhaka's US embassy. According to these, US ambassador
James Moriarty pressed Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, the prime minister's
energy adviser, to award offshore gas blocks to ConocoPhillips. Maybe
he, Tuku, remembered belatedly, that the government has not only
failed to officially respond to these leaks, but has gone ahead and
acted at the US ambassador's bidding.
Which, after all, is what the oil and gas national committee's hartal
was all about. Scrap the deal. It's against our national interest!
And, as is only to be expected, neither the BNP and its allied
parties, nor the IAB, lent their support to the national committee's
demands or to their hartal. Telling, eh?
Police action against Zainul Abdin Farroque, the opposition's chief
whip, was brutal to an unheard of degree. On July 6 morning, Farroque
had led a march of BNP men and women lawmakers to the Farmgate
roundabout and back to Manik Mia Avenue, when a group of police
officers raced and approached him. Mohammadpur zone assistant
commissioner Biplob Sarker stepped up and said,
Biplob: 'Jodi kono garir moddhe haat den action ey jabo kintu' (If you
lay a finger on a vehicle, we'll go into action).
Abdin: 'Dhur, tho, tor action' (Scat, shoo, you and your action hah!).
Biplob: 'Thapraya tor daat falaya dimu' (Watch out, I'll slap your teeth out)
Abdin: 'Fala' (Go ahead)
Biplob: 'Kukurer baccha kothakar, ki mone korsosh?' (Son of a bitch,
who the hell do you think you are?)
Abdin: 'Fala' (Go ahead)
If you don't believe me, go to YouTube and check it out. I watched the
altercation take place here , while many more Bangladeshis watched it
on their nightly news, courtesy of private TV channels. Abdin, whose
right arm was in a sling from a wound suffered from a tear gas
canister shell several days earlier, was swiftly surrounded by other
police officials as the altercation began. One of them grabbed at his
sling and wrenched it off, another grabbed at his T-shirt, and pulled
it off as the others moved in on him. Undressed from the waist up, he
was punched and repeatedly hit with batons. Abdin fell to the ground,
only to be kicked. Repeatedly. Head, body. He was helped up by his
party members and was being helped over to the NAM quarters when the
police chased him, caught up with him as he was entering the
building's lift. They beat him again. Abdin was arrested and helped on
to a police van which began moving before he had been fully laid on to
the floor of the pickup. He fell down on the road. Bloodied, bruised,
battered, he has been hospitalised.
In this day and age of electronic media, where hundreds of photographs
of what occurred were taken, where TV journalists videoed the event,
where those who missed it on the nightly news can log on to YouTube
and watch it, is it not brazen of government ministers, top party
officials, police officials concerned and all other government
apologists to keep claiming that Abdin 'fell down' in the tussle? That
Abdin had received head injuries 'as he fell down' in scuffles with
police officials (Sahara Khatun)? That he was also to blame, for
having 'censured the police officers' (Mahbub-ul-Hanif, prime
minister's special assistant)? That his injuries were 'minor'?
Is it not brazen of the two police officials who led the attack to get
themselves admitted to a hospital? Of the home minister to go visit
them? News has leaked that public disgust at the attack, at calls for
trying the abusive and attacking officers, of punishing them, has led
government trouble-shooters to advice them to lie low. To get
themselves admitted to the police hospital. In the meanwhile, police
has refused to record a case against ADC Harun-ur-Rashid and AC Biplob
Sarkar for assaulting Zainul Abdin. Instead, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar
police filed a case against 10-12 persons including Zainul Abdin for
assaulting the police on duty. The home ministry has formed a
three-member committee to probe into the incident.
Despite Awami Leaguers busy in recounting incidents when their leaders
too had been beaten up while in opposition (later agriculture minister
Motia Chowdhury, later home minister Mohammad Nasim etc, etc), despite
BNP supporters threatening to wreak vengeance when they return to
power (in blogs), members of the public are shocked. And remain
shocked. And, as news comes to light that both police officers were
ex-Chhatra League members (Haroon was a central committee member in
1998, while Biplob was secretary, Jagannath Hall), questions are
raised afresh about the police force. About the public's desire for a
national force, not an Awami police force, i.e. which works at the
bidding of the ruling party, to fulfil its partisan agenda.
Members of the police force were equally brutal toward oil and gas
committee activists. One photo, published in the Daily Sun on July 4,
shows a member of the police attempting to gouge out the eyes of a
young male activist, as his equally young female comrade attempts to
drag him away. Shampa Bose, central committee member of the
Samajtantrik Mahila Forum, told me that when the police had raided
Bashod's office (Bangladesher Samajtrantik Dal), had dragged out women
activists, Selina Akhtar, a master's student, had been pushed to the
ground, had been kicked and stomped on her breasts and stomach by male
police officers. Lutfunnahar Sumona, student of Eden College (see
photo above), was kicked by a male police officer in her upper groin.
Is this part of police training? Are they specifically taught to
target reproductive organs of female activists? To dissuade them from
political activism and devote themselves to marriage and healthy
child-bearing only? I think the nation's women would like answers to
these questions from the home minister. A woman herself.
We would like a national police force, not a partisan one—neither the
Awami League nor the BNP. Nor one which serves the interests of
multinational companies. Nor one that services a patriarchal,
keeping-women-in-line agenda.
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/25685.html
------------------------------------
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
alochona-digest@yahoogroups.com
alochona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
alochona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/