EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

Rivers unprotected as ever

Enforcement of law pressing urgency

To all appearances, the rivers and other water bodies surrounding the capital city see doomed, as the law prohibiting their illegal occupation has never been respected. Even a government agency like the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) itself has been found to violate court order by erecting business establishments in the filled parts of Buriganga river at Sadarghat in the city. It has even built a jetty by filling up Shitalakhya River at Kanchpur in violation of High Court Order of June 25, 2009 to demolish all such structures. Do these instances not open the door for the vested quarters to go ahead with illegal grabbing with impunity? And what worries us further is that even if in certain cases where the Wetland and Open Spaces Conservation Act, 2000, has been enforced to bring the violators to justice, they evaded punishment through legal loopholes. That leaves one wondering, if the violators of the river protection law are more powerful than the government and the court?

There is no instance so far of any one breaking the provisions of the Wetland and Open Space Conservation Act 2000, which saw an amendment in 2009, getting duly punished. In one recent case, a river grabber at Kamrangirchar of the city was detained. But that could hardly discourage others committing the same offence. Ironically, recently the DoE stopped a member of the River Saving Task Force', also a lawmaker, from filling up a canal without due permission. Stranger still, the lawmaker later again sought DoE's permission to continue the illegal work.

Against this disappointing background, the rivers and other water bodies, wetlands and open spaces will continue to be an easy prey to the illegal occupiers. The government, if it is serious about protecting those should put its foot down on the errant. In a similar vein, the media, the pro-environment groups, the civil society and all others concerned must carry out a stronger and more forceful campaign to save our rivers, various water bodies and wetlands from the unrelenting violators of the law.

Destroying a teenager's future

Time for firm action against perpetrators

What the Rapid Action Battalion has done to the young Limon Hossain of Jhalakati district is a clear outrage. The young man, aged sixteen, has had one of his legs amputated because some trigger-happy member of the force shot him at close range on the unsubstantiated charge that he is a member of a terrorist gang. The truth, as has since become known, is that the RAB personnel accosted Limon as he stepped out of his home to collect his family cattle, asked him about an individual they were looking for and then shot him the moment he answered in the negative. The young man, who was looking forward to taking part at the HSC examinations the next day, then bled for three hours before being taken all the way to Dhaka. By then, his leg had become useless.

This atrocity raises once more the question of the impunity with which RAB has been operating for years. Its allegation that Limon is a terrorist is rendered meaningless considering all the positive reports which have come from Limon's teachers, family and neighbours about his background. Like millions of others in rural Bangladesh, he struggles with poverty, works in a brick kiln for paltry wages and even borrows clothes from others in order to make a decent appearance in class. When RAB now charges him with criminality (it has filed two cases against him), one is impelled to ask if such insensitivity and impunity on its part can any more be ignored.

It is clear that the future of the young man has been damaged beyond repair. We demand swift action against those who shot Limon. It is indeed shocking that, even as we write this editorial, no one in the government has promised action against the RAB men behind this outrage. Are the authorities yet in denial mode about RAB excesses? It is the collective conscience of a nation that has now been aroused. It becomes everyone's duty to demand justice. It is for the government to go after the perpetrators of this grisly deed.