Our politicians
Anonymous, On e-mail
In local politics, it has become a cliché to say that people involved in crime and terrorism belong to no political parties. There was a time when crime started its own journey towards perversion. Economists often hold widespread poverty and severe inequality in wealth distribution responsible for social crimes. I think this definition was appropriate long time ago when crime logbooks were not crowded with hourly reports of murder, mugging or social harassment. Nowadays, my perception is that more than proportionate criminal activities are motivated, either politically or due to personal conflict of interests. The mere proportion of criminal activities which are conducted for life saving and/or luxury rents due to unemployment or disguised unemployment do not characterise the overall crime scenario of Bangladesh. Hence, it is political crime which dominates the crime scene in Bangladesh. Why this generalisation? This vicious cycle started when some office seeking politicians gave birth to criminals to carry out underworld activities for them which would aid their path and existence in politics as a career. These criminals are political criminals, who earn a handsome amount of money for conducting criminal activities related to political benefits of some master planner politician(s). These criminals do not have any explicit political ideology, and they do not ask questions about a particular assignment. In technical language, they are "programmed to perform tasks", and in simple English, they are "hired to kill". In social terminology, they are analogous to prostitutes who eventually turn into brothel leaders. To my knowledge, I have not seen any strategic drive by the present or past governments to arrest listed criminals. I can talk about the politicians' practice of talking cheap in another of my columns in detail. I think most readers by now understand that they will start listening to such cheap talks when the election draws nearer. Getting back to politicians, I don't remember seeing the present or past government arresting and punishing a purely political criminal, whereas we all (including police, judiciary, professionals, investors, journalists, intellectuals, government, and opposition, if any) know they wander at large. They have their own conflict, often kill each other in the underworld, and if someone amongst them is smart, he survives and eventually becomes a politician!
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