THE home adviser to the interim government finally admitting that the country鈥檚 law and order situation has deteriorated is a positive step, particularly as the government has so far persisted in denying any such decline. The adviser made the admission on September 7 while addressing the media. In his speech, he stated that there had been a 鈥榮light deterioration in law and order based on the incidents of the last few days鈥�. Such a statement, however, amounts to little more than a half-truth, for law and order have remained in shambles ever since the interim government assumed office in August 2024. Mob violence, coupled with murder, extortion, robbery and dacoity, alongside an inadequate and often delayed response on the part of the government to curb these crimes, appears to have overshadowed whatever achievements the administration may otherwise claim. The failure to address mob violence and the weakness of law enforcement mechanisms have together led the country to witness one appalling incident after another. The most recent case was the desecration of a shrine in Rajbari on September 5, when a mob exhumed the body of the Sufi practitioner Nura Pagla and burnt it in broad daylight, an act that shocked the nation.
Incidents of mob violence, in fact, show no sign of abating. The government鈥檚 response to this steadily deteriorating situation has, meanwhile, been as chaotic, incoherent and fragmented as the situation itself. Its approach has consisted of announcing one special drive after another, sometimes even simultaneously, issuing statements in response to horrendous lynching incidents in one place while detaining a few perpetrators in another. While it is evident that such measures have failed to yield meaningful results, what is even more disturbing is the government鈥檚 insistence 鈥� based on crime statistics from the authoritarian Awami League era 鈥� that major crimes have not increased. Such claims, however, stand in stark contradiction to police data, which show a notable rise in several categories of serious crime. According to official police figures, 1,336 cases of dacoity and robbery were reported across the country in the first six months of this year. Over the same period, police recorded 1,530 murder cases. Political violence, too, has been pervasive across the country, adding further to the crisis. Such a law and order situation does not bode well for the country, particularly as it heads towards the national election in a matter of months.
The government, therefore, needs to address a number of pressing issues if it is to contain the surge in crime and restore law and order. It must reconsider and reassess its current approach and implement practical, well-designed and carefully considered measures to improve the law and order situation, ensuring at every stage that justice and due process remain at the centre of all state actions.
