EDITORIAL
Independent investigations needed to find real culprits
According to news reports in various papers published yesterday, at least seven dead bodies were recovered from Narayanganj and Uttara on Sunday. Four of the bodies were found in Araihazar of Narayanganj, one in Bhulta, Narayanganj, and two in Uttara. The four bodies found in Araihajar were bullet-hit, and police suspect they were shot at close-range. The two bodies recovered from Uttara were already decomposing, and the men are suspected to have been killed earlier and dumped there. Before this, on September 14, three other bullet-riddled bodies were found in Rupganj of Narayanganj.
Naturally, the rising death toll does not bode well for public sense of security, and can create fear and panic among citizens. While we are yet to get any concrete explanation about the most recent cases, an initial explanation put forward by the police has pointed towards in-fighting between criminals. This does not reassure, since the explanation of in-fighting (along with shootouts) have been much repeated recently. In the case of the bodies recovered on September 14, police claimed the murders were the result of gunfights between two groups of drug dealers, while the family of one of the victims had alleged that men claiming to be with law enforcement had picked him up a day earlier. In the 243 cases of "drug dealers and peddlers" killed since May 4, at least 50 deaths were attributed to gunfights. In many cases families maintained that the victims were picked up by law enforcement men in plainclothes.
The rising death toll calls for immediate investigations into the killings, as well as the claims of the relatives of those killed. For this, independent probes are necessary. Whoever may be the real culprits, unverified attribution of causes before investigations can only harm the image of the police, and give rise to a sense of insecurity and panic.
- Courtesy: The Daily Star / Oct 23, 2018
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