Violence in Bangladesh

The stand off over Crossfire continues with the police still preventing entry to Drik and the lawyers issuing writs against the police. Human Rights Watch has become involved and in general there is disquiet amongst the intelligentsia of Dhaka over the event. As Sir Humphrey would have said, 'it's the thin end of the wedge'. If the police are prepared to take such heavy-handed action over something as seemingly innocuous as Crossfire, then where does it end. Moreover, there a raft of issues that are much more in need of policing than Crossfire and Drik, and everyone is aware of this.

It seems that 129 people were killed in crossfire in Bangladesh in 2009. Crossfire is a euphemism for extra -judicial killing. RAB and the police summarily execute people, allegedly criminals, who it is alleged, get caught in the crossfire; the exchange of gunfire between RAB and the criminals. Few people accept this explanation but on one level there is a degree of toleration of the police actions as it is one a way of controlling the crime that is blighting Dhaka at the moment. This was certainly true when RAB was first formed as a means of combating the 'godfathers' of Dhaka crime who had emerged in the early 2000s, and who seemed to control the streets.

However, to claim that the Crossfire exhibition will encourage 'unrest' and 'anarchy' seems excessive and is indicative of how sensitive the issue is. It also highlights the level of violence that is actually happening in Dhaka, and Bangladesh, at the moment. Some examples:
1] The papers often print accounts of lynchings where people summarily kill muggers and thieves in the street. Nothing ever seems to be said about the lynchers; whether they apprehended and prosecuted, or whether it is all too hard and they are allowed to get away with their violent act.
2] There are frequent reports of businessmen being shot during robberies or over business disputes but rarely reports of successful prosecutions of the perpetrators.
3] I regard the behaviour on the roads as a form of violence. There are also reports of bus and truck drivers being lynched after a fatal accident.
4] There are the acid attacks, mostly on women.
5] There are also reports of unjust attacks on domestic servants, particularly young girls.

All societies live with undercurrents of violence so I'm not claiming that Dhaka is more violent than anywhere else, just that it is becoming more noticeable and I think that it is related to the intolerable pressure urban expansion and population growth are placing on normal everyday life in the city.

Finally, there is one other aspect of violence in Bangladesh that can't be ignored and that is the outrageous behaviour of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) and the manner in which it continues to kill Bangladeshis who stray across the border. I have raised this matter with some police advisers here in Bangladesh and their response was; they're probably smugglers! So, you deserve to die if you smuggle? I think not. There have been recent discussions between India and Bangladesh on the issue but the BSF still seems to be quite happily shooting people that cross the border, and this is in areas where the border is ill-defined or arbitrarily drawn across villages and communities. In other jurisdiction this situation would be condemned.