A brutal mob lynching at Bangladesh’s oldest university has highlighted the breakdown of law and order in the country just as its fledgling caretaker government tries to assert control and push through sweeping institutional reforms.
Late Wednesday, Tofazzal Hossein, a man known for his mental health issues and his wanderings around the 102-year-old University of Dhaka, visited a university dormitory.
Accusing him of theft, a mob of students grabbed him and savagely beat him for several hours.
By early Thursday, Hossein, 35, was dead, the latest victim of a wave of mob violence that has gripped Bangladesh since student protests toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and forced her to flee the country last month.
Mob violence and student abuses were commonplace during Hasina’s 15-year rule. The human rights group Ain o Salish Kendra recorded 32 mass killings between January and June, even before student protests toppled her government and left more than 1,000 people dead.
But since the government fell on August 5, the situation has spiraled out of control. In the days that followed, police officers, fearing reprisals from students, disappeared from the streets, creating a vacuum that has yet to be filled.
In just five weeks since early August, 21 people have been lynched across the country, according to a tally by the The Daily Stara leading Bangladeshi newspaper. One of the victims, a former student leader accused of attacking protesters in July, was himself beaten to death at another major university on Wednesday.
Students once hailed as democratic heroes are now accused of committing mob violence. Six of them are accused of Hossein’s murder, and seven others are implicated in the second case.
The lawlessness has spread nationwide, leading to numerous incidents of extortion, harassment, intimidation and violence in courts, sometimes triggering wider conflicts.
In the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of southern Bangladesh, the lynching on Wednesday of a man accused of stealing a bicycle has reignited long-simmering tensions between Bengalis and indigenous people. The ensuing violence has already left at least four people dead, according to media reports.
The unrest comes days after the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus granted the military sweeping powers to restore order. At stake is not just domestic peace and stability in the country’s industrial regions. Yunus’s six-week-old government has set up six committees to advance democratic reforms, including a commission tasked with amending the country’s 51-year-old constitution.
Instability in Bangladesh, South Asia’s third most populous country, is also drawing regional attention, with Indian politicians expressing concern over reports of attacks on Hindus.
The Bangladeshi military’s new powers, announced Tuesday, allow commissioned officers to act as “executive magistrates,” making arrests, conducting searches, dispersing unlawful assemblies and opening fire in extraordinary circumstances.
Asif Nazarul, the interim government’s legal adviser, said the government had acted in response to “subversive acts” and instability, particularly in the country’s industrial areas.
“Given the situation, army personnel have been given judicial powers,” Nazarul was quoted as saying in the newspaper. The Daily Star.
Shaken by growing insecurity, many Bangladeshis have welcomed the military’s newfound power.
Noting that security remains a “big challenge” for the caretaker government, Badiul Alam Majumdar, editor-in-chief of Citizens for Good Governance, told VOA: “This was done to maintain law and order in light of the overall situation. It was done temporarily. I hope the situation will change.”
Accused of using violence during anti-government protests, Bangladeshi police have become the target of student anger after Hasina’s ouster. Police stations have been ransacked and several officers have been killed or burned alive, their bodies hanging from bridges.
In these cases, no one is held accountable and the police fear for their safety. Many have yet to return to their posts, leaving the police force understaffed and barely operational.
Julia Bleckner, senior Bangladesh researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that while the government has a responsibility to maintain law and order, giving the military “unchecked” powers raises concerns about abuses.
“They were given a mandate to conduct fairly widespread and arbitrary searches, detentions and arrests,” Bleckner said in a telephone interview with VOA.
The military can now arrest anyone on the spot for “disturbing public order” and use civilian personnel to disperse “illegal gatherings,” Bleckner noted.
“We are under a new government that has made massive and very important commitments to human rights, but these are the same security forces that have been committing abuses for decades,” Bleckner said.
The last time the Bangladeshi military exercised similar policing powers was during the 2006-08 political crisis. At the time, the military was accused of carrying out arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations.
Nazarul, the legal adviser, said he did not believe the military would “abuse this authority,” according to the The Daily Star.
But critics remain skeptical.
“It’s not fair,” ZI Khan Panna, a senior lawyer, said of the military’s judiciary’s power, according to the The Daily Star“Has the government lost confidence in the magistrates? It is not normal for military personnel to exercise the functions of magistrates under the direction of deputy commissioners. It would not be wise to mix the military with the general public.”
The military has not announced any arrests since being given police powers three days ago, but has been criticized for its failure to end the violence.
Nolen Deibert, head of Freedom House’s Asia religious and ethnic freedom program, noted that attacks on indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracks region occurred while “the military stood by with its arms crossed.”
The caretaker government’s interior affairs adviser, Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, said a high-level committee would be formed to investigate the violence, Reuters reported.
“The country faces real risks of increased conflict and threats of violence against minority groups,” Deibert said in an email. “The interim government must come up with a plan to return police powers to civilian authorities who will protect and serve all Bangladeshis equally, regardless of race or creed.”
VOA’s Bangla service contributed to this report.
