Snapping utilities to Khaleda

By the time this column appears, we  would expect that in addition to the restoration of power line to where Khaleda has been residing in, internet  and cable disconnects will have been set right returning to status quo ante.

For what has been done is reprehensible and condemnable. The procedures of cutting utility services are clearly laid out -- so long as you pay the bill, you get the service. This cannot be a matter to be used for political purposes. Otherwise, the government can cut utility services of anybody it does not like. Khaleda should enjoy all rights of every citizen.

If utility workers take law into their own hands, then why are they not being publicly condemned and punished? Or else, the government should be held complicit. Actually, the way the episode was enacted was deviously disingenuous creating a bad precedent. It ranged from the shipping minister's early warning through a late night Desco employee's wire-cutting at a purported instruction from a police station to BTRC's reported written directive to Grameenphone and other mobile operators to restrict access to service within a specified radius. In the process, around 10,000 people were denied mobile services due to the targeted suspension by authorities. Who accounts for this?

This is not to, in any way, detract from the mindless suffering caused to the people by the blockade and hartal. We are as irate as the compatriots are over BNP's continuing oborodh exacerbated by a 72-hour hartal. But suspension of utility services to BNP chief is trivialising the boarder issue of finding a political solution to an essentially political problem.