THE PAST WEEK IN A NUTSHELL, SLIGHTLY CRACKED

Enemies of the state

Apparently all it takes for rapid police action is an anonymous GD. Past Saturday, the police hit BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office like lovers at Ramna Park on Valentine's Day. They were hunting for "materials for carrying out anti-state and subversive activities". Two hours, later they found nothing. Combing through the photos, we found a couple of gross usages of inkjet printers reserved for office use. These are wasteful for ink and paper. Considering that soon enough we won't have the Sundarbans to supply us with trees for paper, this seems like a long stretch at anti-state activities.  

Make money without doing anything

Here's a tip for lazy people wanting to make money: become a prosecutor of International Crimes Tribunal. Turns out Mohammad Ali of the same profession was suspended Februrary 2016 but has been enjoying all benefits including a monthly Tk 1 lakh plus income, an expenses paid government car with a driver as well as police protection for when you need pesky plastic road blocks removed. 

Apparently he was suspended for "breaching discipline and code of conduct, and serious professional misconduct". The misconduct may partially be that he collects his salary every month, throws it up in the air and runs around as it flutters to the ground while Rihanna sings in the background about "Working". We wanted to ask him about that. 

"I was just asked not to get involved with any case. Besides, I did not get any instructions from the ministry. So I am getting my salary and other benefits," he told The Daily Star on May 17. Can't blame him for taking something he is willingly given. Such a hard life. 

No means no 

A crime is never a single, isolated incident. It is like discovering that cheesy 'poneer' you accidentally left on top of the fridge instead of inside two weeks ago. The worms will keep on pouring out. The very recent case where two university students were raped by their acquaintances at Dhaka's Raintree Hotel under birthday celebration pretenses is a case in point. 

We found one of the prime accused Nayem Ashraf has allegedly made tons of money swindling hefty amounts from unemployed youths and leaking question papers. Married multiple times, he doesn't even go under his real name which is Hasan Mohammad Halim.  

But before that, the other prime accused Ahmed Shafat sealed the deal admitting their involvement in the rape. He is not as pure as gold as it was initially made out to be. More like Gausia market's painted imitation jewellery. 

Not done yet. See, Rajuk suddenly finds out that Raintree Hotel is operating illegally in a residential area and the top two floors shouldn't even exist. This oversight is understandable since in this hot city, no one really looks up for fear of being blinded by heat or garbage thrown from an upper floor window. 

Those are a lot of incidents connected to each other where people should have said 'NO' or listened when someone did. Somehow the rustling of cash is often louder than words.