Editorial
Violence against power outage
Crossing limits
People angered by power outage blocked traffic in two important areas of the city, namely, Tejgaon Industrial Area and Jatrabari. They blocked Dhaka-Chittagong Highway near Jatrabari creating a gridlock of hundreds of vehicles. People surrounding the industrial area came out on the streets with sticks. Protesters even broke a number of private and public vehicles near the FDC gate and Shatrasta intersection.We are perturbed over this growing culture of violence. People all over the country over the past several days have sufficiently registered their anger and frustration against unprecedented power outage and its continued state of deterioration. Why more of it? It is time to put a halt to roadblocks and violent agitation leading to all round inconvenience to members of the public. We also apprehend that continuity of all such protest marches has the portent for giving rise to a state of anarchy. Besides, it should also be understood that the state of our power supply and distribution is so bad that heightened protest marches by themselves cannot radically alter the objective situation. Why destroy public and private property in the name of protests taking your wrath out on innocent people having nothing to do with the creation of power outages? Besides, it is the month of Ramadan and with the rising complexities facing the forthcoming election it is all the more reason for us to stay focused and show restraint rather than going on a rampage with grievances. While protest marches are a democratic right of the people at the same time it should also be remembered that none has the right to increase the miseries of the people by any irresponsible act.
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