The extrajudicial blight
ALLEGED extrajudicial killings are once again attracting adverse media attention. Bar council leaders are demanding immediate investigation of such killings by the apex judiciary and have threatened to place the issue on international platform if the government does not act on its recommendation. One needs to know why this recurrent spectre of extrajudicial killing continues to haunt us in a democratic polity.
Upon closer scrutiny one would find that the extrajudicial killings are indicative of the uncontrollable state of crime and the helplessness of the regulatory authority in this regard. Under such circumstances, it would not be improper to say that the failure to lawfully conduct the affairs of public order necessitated those extrajudicial killings. Any farsighted consideration will, however, convince us that such extrajudicial killings could not be an effective and realistic method of crime control. If we fail to protect the legal rights of the accused we will not be able to ensure the rights of the innocent members of the public.
It is not for the ordinary members of the public to take a look at such extra-legal killings because they get immediate relief from the depredations of the local bully or the entrenched tormentor. However, a civilised government cannot be a prisoner of such damaging retrograde thoughts. A very significant aspect, which demands serious attention, is that the so-called terrorists killed in the encounter were in fact politically patronised and blessed. As a result, there is no guarantee that such killings will prove positive, as was implied by the then responsible establishment personalities.
"Operation Clean Heart" in 2002 also resulted in extra-legal killings of identified terrorists and criminals. Law and order or the crime situation did not register much of a change for the better. In fact, extrajudicial killings have not succeeded in controlling crime anywhere in any country. Crime and terrorism do not cross the bearable limit on their own. There are always cogent and credible factors behind such abnormalities. One needs to probe into those with the concern of a protector. Extrajudicial killings cannot be a sensible alternative proposition.
As a civilised nation, if we expect our enforcement institutions including the police to regularly brush up their professional skills, we cannot create a scenario wherein one would be willing to believe that those perpetrators of crime who cannot be brought under the law have to be dealt with beyond the law.
In such an assumption lies the suicidal admission that the criminal justice administration of a democratic polity has failed to act, and the state has forsaken one of its primary functions. Since no right-thinking Bangladeshi would reconcile to a scenario that smacks of a failed government, they have a duty to find out why some organs of the state have to resort to apparent vigilante action. The nation needs to know if law-enforcement personnel are deliberately deviating from the statutory directives in anti-crime operations.
Eulogising the so-called "encounter actions" created an environment wherein result-oriented investigating officers were increasingly getting inclined to resort to short-cut methods to please the boss or the political masters. The worrisome part is the threat to put an alleged criminal or an ordinary suspect under the so-called "encounter" scenario in order to gratify ulterior motives. Since most crossfire deaths were not seriously pursued for establishing the suspected culpability, the culprits in the enforcement and investigative apparatus discovered a macabre win-win situation in such patently illegal acts.
Accountability and fear receded into the background and investigation by the book became a pathetically low priority. Professionally speaking, this was an instance of heightened jeopardy because, in Bangladesh, the crime fighting machinery already stood accused of not cultivating a scientific modus-operandi and quite often relapsed into the untenable third-degree methods.
Do we want sustained laborious action under the law to strengthen our democratic foundation, or do we need rash, desperate action without the cover of law? Extrajudicial killings, undoubtedly, do not fit in with the first proposition. We need to be absolutely clear about that.
The ultimate punishment in the alleged "encounter," about whose credibility many are not convinced, appears as summary response from desperate executives of law enforcement. The legality of actions leading to such extreme action apart, any responsible citizen would like to know if, in our often over-zealous anti-crime operations, we were just treating the symptoms without venturing to study and assess the objective conditions promoting criminality. We do not need sociologists and criminologists to tell us that present-day crime is a complex social phenomenon caused by a multiplicity of factors, and determining culpability is an extremely mind-exacting task.
Everyday experience tells us that quite often the fun-seeking delinquent of yesteryears turns into an uncontrollable don of the day due to the patronage of powerful quarters and the unexplained inaction of the enforcement outfit. Therefore, when deaths occur in "encounter" some myopic elements may be satisfied, but a civilised society which wishes to live by the canons of law cannot but be concerned.
The fact that successive governments have failed to put an effective brake on such unlawful activities in the sensitive sectors raises disturbing doubts about the sworn commitments to control crime and corruption. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the worried public to believe that the fearsome deaths in "encounter" should be the preferred alternative. Spectacular but dangerous palliatives cannot understandably be substitutes for painful sustained action.
What we need is adequate provision of witness protection and victim support in the criminal justice administration. To make those effective we need large injection of governmental funds. Any further delay will only swell the ranks of summary-justice seekers and the admirers of vigilante action. The decapitating adversity of the victims of crime demand mainstream support of the system.
We now have misguided citizens and law enforcers in our midst who think that if a criminal is known, whatever the process of such identification, there is not much harm in doing him away for the good of the society. Little do they realise that their logic is queer because the worst criminal on earth can also justify the blackest crime on the pretext of good motive.
It needs to be impressed once again that the practice of breaking the law in the name of law enforcement is totally unacceptable and intolerable and has no place in a democratic society governed by the rule of law. It is objectionable because it is arbitrary as a process and random in its effects.
Law enforcement is a field of activity in which interaction between the world of the powerful and the world of the powerless is manifested. Hence, we have to ensure that law enforcement emphasises principles of purpose and principles of values. We must come out of the degrading thought that those who cannot be taken care of within the ambit of law have to be dealt with beyond the law.
The writer is a columnist of The Daily Star.
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