Daylight murder in city

The murder of a local Awami League politician and his chauffeur in the capital on Wednesday is once more a grim reminder of the slide in law and order in the country. In these past few days, we have made our views known about the need to contain such spiralling crime if things are not to get any worse. We have pointed to the violent manner of young women being killed as well as the unnatural deaths of some children in recent days. And now that two murders have been committed in broad daylight in the capital, we cannot but serve warning to the authorities that unless serious and drastic steps are taken to halt this on-going spell of criminality, it may become well-nigh impossible for society to come away from the brink.
The irony here is that the crimes have all occurred at a time when Bangladesh is a co-host of the 2011 ICC World Cup Cricket. A thorough security blanket has been thrown around the capital to ensure that nothing happens to disturb the games. Such measures ought normally to have made life easier for citizens. Unfortunately, while we can claim that security regarding cricket is really in place, we cannot quite say that it has had any effect on the lives of citizens. One could even ask if all this attention to security vis-à-vis cricket may not actually have deflected police attention away from carrying out their normal responsibility of making and keeping life secure for citizens.
In the circumstances, we need hardly emphasise the absolute requirement for the authorities to take note of conditions. Pretending that all is well on the law and order front when it is not will do little good for them as well as for citizens. A strong, purposeful drive must now be undertaken to arrest this decline in conditions. It could be argued by some that our police force is often overstretched in performing its duties. There is a point there. Even so, with such other forces as the Rapid Action Battalion and Ansars present on the scene, it ought not to be terribly hard for criminals to be neutralized. Firmness is called for.