Was the mild punishment given by the law-enforcing agencies wrongful? (13)
Was the mild punishment given by the law-enforcing agencies wrongful?
(13)
(Continued from the previous post): 1. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10216682046631393&set=a.10203716466900003Author:
Dr. Md. Jafar Ullah
Professor
Department of Agronomy
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: jafarullahsau@gmail.com
In the previous sections, I wrote that at the beginning of the establishment of social distancing in Bangladesh, the law enforcement agencies applied some ‘punishment tools’ for the people who came out on the roads without many valid reasons for violating social distancing. However, there were some punishments that were beyond our national norms and consequently generated ‘mass public criticisms’. Especially, the punishment of a magistrate given to two elderly people (probably rickshaw pullers) had bagged mass public dissatisfaction. This public discontent was expressed in social media and those were so viral that the authority had to withdraw her (magistrate) from her duty. I also mentioned that there were some other punishments given by the police to many other peoples which were more severe in comparison to that given to that ‘two elderly persons’.
But, I wondered seeing the situation in the following days. Following the mass criticisms, the authority advised the assigned law enforcement agencies to handle the ‘program’ by convincing those who came out on necessities. Due to this instruction, the police became soft and also softened their attitudes.
The resultant effect was that, the gathering of the people on roads and markets increased in two to three folds. Both the crowds and private vehicles on roads increased significantly, which I thought - could be a very ‘dangerous’ in respect of the spread of the corona virus, as those were not coincided with the principles of social distance. People gathered more densely on roads and markets in comparison to the previous days. Vehicles were seen to roam about massively as they liked to do. Probably this was due to the direction of the authority advising that ‘do not beat or insult them, but try to convince them’.
Seeing this aftermath consequence, the army declared to be on the hard line again to combat those crowds from the roads and markets. Probably they thought that there was no other alternative without going to the hard line. Well, probably it was just a threat, not was executed practically in most of the cases.
To assure the social distance for preventing corona, many countries has tightened their law so as to implement the social distance programme of their own countries. Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Philippines and some other countries imposed even curfew in their countries. Even the Philippines President ordered police to shoot the people who comes out of home while curfew is on set. Even, the Russian President Vladimir Putin declared two options for his people; ‘either staying at home for 15 days or to enjoy five years jail’.
But we have to take initiatives base on our own conditions. We must realize why those people came out of home breaking the ‘stay at home’ programme. We must solve those first and then we have to be at the hard point, which may also be needed, at least in limited scale, if the citizens do not co-operate the law enforcing agencies to maintain social distance.
Well, practically, neither the police nor the army returned to their previous role. They remained soft using ‘convincing attitudes’ to those who came out on roads or rushed to the grocers to buy their grocery items. Many of the out-goers gave reasons of being on roads, which actually were not on valid ground. These scenes were widely circulated in our televisions; and other electronic and social media.
Well, the above said ‘convincing attitudes’ might have worked elsewhere in Bangladesh and also in some areas of the Dhaka city. However, two aspects aggravated the social distance remarkably; one, ‘the manner of food-aid distribution’, and two, ‘the unwise decision of the garment owners’.
(To be continued)
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