The seven murders

Admittedly, there was a degree of uncertainty in the minds of many, though not openly articulated, that given the links of the masterminds and their calling, the sensational seven murder case may be stalled, if not scuttled entirely. The fears have been belied and we have the verdict, in good time, which we hope will assuage to some extent the wounded hearts of the victims' families.

However, while the legal process has taken its course and the guilty have got their due, there is an underlying issue that begs the question – which is, who will guard the guards themselves? To be exact, our concern is who monitors the law enforcing agencies down to the lowest level? The public deserves to know what internal mechanism the elite force employs to oversee the activities of its members and what actions have been taken so far, and against how many of its errant members.

And this very fundamental question stems from the involvement in the killings of mid ranking officers of a law enforcing agency which has structured hierarchy and well defined chain of command. It defies logic that, given the large number of accused belonging to one single unit of RAB, the culprits could plan and execute it, and such a plan was not conceived and executed in one day or week, without the higher authorities getting wind of the matter. 

Indeed the gruesome killings may never have come to light, and the seven killed would have joined the long list of 'missing', had the bodies not floated up in the river. We are in no way painting the entire force with a broad brush, but as evident from this case, there are errant members who are prone to violating the system and willing to go to any length for any price. This is a wakeup call; the elite force should plug the loopholes in its oversight mechanism.