The shocking death of innocents

The gruesome incident in Sunday's BNP-Jamaat countrywide blockade which made media headlines and bloody footage was the brutal stabbing to death of 24-year-old Bishwajit Das by a bunch of hoodlums on a free rein. The young man, mistaken for an opposition supporter, was killed reportedly by a group of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activists in broad daylight. The visual media showed more than a few seconds' coverage of the unarmed man on his way to work, being beaten with sticks and iron rods and stabbed with sharp weapons, covered in blood and trying to escape, while people and presumably the police looked on as they so often do in the case of violence by pro-government activists. Another person died in a clash in Sirajganj.
Bishwajit has been identified as a passer-by, sadly a victim present at the wrong place and time. Even if he were a picket, the proper action to take would have been to hand him over to the police. Instead, anti-blockade activists decided to take the law into their own hands, deliberately and publicly executing him. Anyone could have been in his place, met one's brutal death in his stead.
The incident is yet another glaring example of our bankrupt politics where party leaders cannot get away by claiming that they have no rein over their members when they wreak havoc on the streets. They must bring them to book for their barbaric actions. If the party allows such examples to be set with impunity, it would be a clear prescription for self-destruction.
Our politics has degenerated into brutalising the innocents with the streets at the mercy of arms-wielding goons as the leaders and policemen wash their hands of all responsibility. And blaming each other has become the norm and an expedient get-away. We not only condemn but reject outright this inhuman form of what cannot even be called coarse politics. The facts are as clear as the barbarism on screen; those responsible must be held accountable for the death of Bishwajit Das and others like him.