PM's welcome stance on extra-judicial killing

PRIME Minister Sheikh Hasina's categorical denunciation of extra-judicial killings that grew into a culture during the BNP-led alliance government strikes a responsive cord instantly with people who believe in the due process of law and supremacy of the rule of law. Not only that, she has made it abundantly clear, and very appropriately at that, on the floor of the House, that her government will stop custodial killings and bring to justice those who were involved in such crimes.
Public memory is still rife with nightmarish incidents being regularly passed off as deaths in crossfire while to the shell-shocked audience these were nothing but custodial killings. When the media and legal and human rights activist groups highlighted the perverse acts different spins would be given to the stories to justify the patently unjustifiable. It was even claimed that desperate measures were called for in a desperate situation, that hardened criminals being no respecters of others' rights deserved none themselves, and that fear needed to be struck in the hearts of offenders waiting in the wings to commit crimes. If such attitudes constitute the stuff of which law enforcement is made, then where is place of law in it? In other words, how could a law enforcement agency be allowed to work with such complete lack of accountability to any higher authority?
There is no doubt that the perpetrators brought bad name to our country's image abroad and the people's confidence in the rule of law took another drubbing through the custodial killings. So, therefore, it devolves upon the Awami League which has come to power on a massive mandate for change to make sure that extra-judicial killing is stopped once and for all.