THE assertion of the law minister, Shafique Ahmed, on Saturday that the government would take tough measures to stop extrajudicial killings by members of the law enforcement agencies is essentially of very little value. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Sunday, he said 'if any law enforcer kills a person without a valid ground of self-defence, it should be termed an extrajudicial killing and every allegation of such killings should investigated.' The condition, i.e. 'without a valid ground of self-defence', essentially negates the possibility of any investigation of extrajudicial killings by the Rapid Action Battalion and other law enforcement agencies. After all, key functionaries of the Awami League-Jatiya Party government, including the home minister and other members of the cabinet, have time and again sought to explain the trigger-happiness of some law enforcers as acts of 'self-defence'. Simply put, the pre-election promise of the ruling Awami League that 'extrajudicial killings will be stopped' and the foreign minister's assertion in the early days of the incumbent government's tenure that it would pursue 'zero-tolerance' policy against extrajudicial killings still remain within the realm of rhetoric.
Meanwhile, the law enforcement agencies, especially the Rapid Action Battalion, have continued with their extrajudicial actions. In fact, on Saturday, the very day the law minister reeled out his apparently ritualistic rhetoric, two young men, who had been picked up by members of the battalion on Tuesday and Wednesday, were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital in 'critical condition'. According to another report also front-paged in New Age on Sunday, the two were allegedly tortured in custody. The incident took place amidst the widespread condemnation over the case of Limon Hossain, whose left leg had to be amputated after a member of the battalion shot him on March 23 after accusing him of being an accomplice of a 'terrorist' of Jhalakati.
The continued extrajudicial actions, including killing, by the battalion and other law enforcement agencies, despite condemnation and criticism by national and international human rights organisations at home and abroad and a series of rules by the apex court tend to highlight the sense of impunity that the law enforcers have. It also indicates that such a sense of impunity may have been reinforced further by the government's apparent failure to call them to account. The question that the government's apparent eagerness to justify extrajudicial killing with the clichéd self-defence argument leads rise to is: why is it unwilling to rein in the trigger-happy law enforcers? One may even ask if the government actually has any control over the trigger-happy law enforcers, especially those who belong to the Rapid Action Battalion.
Such questions are obviously detrimental to the government's authority and credibility. However, these questions will continue to haunt the people unless the government takes an unambiguous position against extrajudicial killing, instead of taking refuge in the pretext—as articulated by the prime minister on February 3—that extrajudicial killings cannot be stopped overnight. Indeed, extrajudicial killings have been in practice for long but it can be stopped and deterred; all the government needs to do is credibly investigate each and every incident of extrajudicial killing, prosecute the accused law enforcers and punish the guilty.
Source: New Age
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