Drugs and Teenage Gangs Must Be Curbed

Zamaluddin Bari

In July and August of 2024, teenagers, youths, students and common people spilled blood on the streets. They wanted a change in the country. Their movement brought down a harsh fascist political power.

Two years have passed since the July revolution. The country went through eighteen months of an interim government. Then the thirteenth national election and a referendum created a new democratic government. Two years have passed without the Awami fascists in power.

But has anything really changed? We cannot clean up fifty four or fifteen years of political corruption in just six months or two years. Still, every long journey starts with one step. Have we taken that first step in these two years?

We expected democratic institutions and a fair, equal society to follow. That promise has not yet begun to show results. Just eight months into the BNP government, the country faces social and political unrest. This instability and uncertainty is very unfortunate.

The people of this country want peace, comfort and stability. They want relief from inflation that outpaces their income. These demands have always existed and will continue to exist. The Chattogram bound long march carried six demands from the eleven party alliance.

The first of these demands has no direct link to the crisis the country faces today. It calls for implementing the result of the referendum held alongside the thirteenth national election in February. Later, from September 19, the alliance began a second long march toward Rangpur.

This march added local issues and the Teesta master plan to the earlier six demands, making eight demands in total. Implementing the referendum result was again listed as the first demand. This shows that fulfilling the referendum promise is the main goal behind these long marches.

Before the thirteenth national election, Jamaat and NCP clearly supported the referendum. At first, BNP’s position on this seemed somewhat unclear and hazy. Eventually, BNP chairman Mr. Tarique Rahman spoke clearly at an election rally. He asked the public to vote yes on the referendum.

Despite criticism from some quarters, BNP and Jamaat shared a common stand on the referendum. This built a kind of national unity behind the reforms and political change promised by the July revolution. BNP has never said it would abandon this position.

Yet different BNP leaders have given mixed statements on implementing the referendum. Slow progress on the constitutional changes the referendum implies, along with claims that the ruling party is unwilling, may have pushed the eleven party alliance toward tough programs like the nationwide long march.

The people are not ready for such a situation right now. The spirit of the July uprising and the process of implementing the referendum result make at least a decade of political and economic stability very urgent. The government and political parties must make sure they do not become tools of any dominating foreign power’s conspiracy.

Implementing the July charter and the referendum result matters greatly. But ensuring political and economic stability and a democratic environment in the country matters even more.

After the July uprising, the country’s law enforcement agencies became largely inactive. For a decade and a half, the police, BGB, RAB and other special forces were not just turned into party tools. They were folded into a fascist state structure that served the regional politics of the Sheikh family.

There are many examples of a sub inspector from Gopalganj contacting the Prime Minister’s office directly to override the orders of an OC or SP in another district. Religious minority groups gained undue dominance inside that police force. In the seventy five year history of the police force since British colonial rule, no second example exists of a killer police officer like Mr. Pradip, the OC.

Police officers like Mr. Biplob Kumar Sarkar and Mr. Bonaj Kumar seemed to rise above the law. Above all, Mr. Ziaul Ahsan led Sheikh Hasina’s enforced disappearance and killing missions while serving in RAB and NTMC. He coldly killed more than a thousand people.

The International Crimes Tribunal’s investigation is bringing out horrifying accounts of these killings, told by victims’ families and witnesses. When the brutal massacre of students during the July uprising failed to save the disappearances and fascist rule, criminal and partisan members of the police force fled after facing public resistance and anger.

During that time, without proper law enforcement, mob violence took hold in the country for a while. Most of the once powerful local musclemen and Awami League cadres fled or went into hiding. But a few, encouraged by media from a neighboring country, tried to resurface and became targets of mob justice.

The question is this. Two years after the fall of the Awami League, has the government managed to bring the police and law enforcement agencies back under clear rule of law? Even if not fully, do we see any visible progress or sign of moving in that direction?

Right now, law enforcement agencies have started anti drug operations in some parts of the country. Around Dhaka, especially in Narayanganj and Gazipur, police operations under the superintendents of police have arrested hundreds of drug sellers and users within just a few days. Yet the real masterminds and big players in the drug trade remain untouched.

Drug trading and its unchecked use have become the biggest factor behind the country’s insecurity and breakdown of law and order. Most muggings, thefts, robberies, unnatural deaths and murders involve drug users and drug dealers. Drugs, online gambling and mobile phone addiction now stand as major obstacles to the nation’s progress, potential and stability.

It has become urgent to control loyalist agents left behind by the fugitive autocrat inside law enforcement, along with drug smugglers, dealers and users. Equally urgent is controlling online gambling, smartphone misuse, cyber crime and online addiction among teenagers and young people. Stopping the supply of Phensedyl, Yaba and heroin coming through the India and Myanmar borders matters far more than arresting only small retailers.

Still, this round of police action against drugs offers some hope. A zero tolerance policy is needed against teenage gang culture that grows under political shelter. On one hand, law and order in the country is worsening. On the other hand, reports show the police chain of command breaking down in places.

The scale and nature of social crime became clear recently in Cumilla. Ms. Nahida Begum, a professor in the Bangla department of a university, and her husband, businessman Mr. K M Firoz Shahriar, lost their only son, thirteen year old Ishayat Shahriar Aprotim, to murder. Parents who hand their children expensive mobile phones are not just leading them astray.

They may also be leading them toward an untimely death. Without a strong social and political stand from the wider public against the decline of education and cultural values, and without firm administrative action, there seems to be no way out of this crisis.