Syed Mahfujul Haque Marjan, Faculty Member of Criminology, University of Dhaka: The Criminal Justice system controls and prevents crime. It enforces penalty for not obeying the law. It includes courts, law enforcement and correction system. If a person commits crime, he or she has to go through these stages. Violation of the natural process of the criminal justice system brings lack of confidence on it. Extrajudicial killings are not far from that.
Extrajudicial killings have become a common phenomenon in the country. It is reported that from 2004, 1900 people have been the victims of extrajudicial killings in the country. ‘Crossfire,’ ‘encounter’ or ‘gunfight’ have become the common words for the mass media too.
The term ‘crossfire’ was coined by the then BNP-led Four Party Alliance government after establishing the Rapid Action Team (RAT), which is now the Rapid Action Battalion. In that time, the major opposition political party, Awami League, bleakly criticized the extrajudicial killing. The party committed to stop the extrajudicial killings in its manifesto before the national election of 2008. When Awami League-led 14 Party Alliance came to power in 2009, it started following the same strategy of the previous government in terms of extra judicial killings.
Although, Awami League and BNP are hostile to each other and enjoy a bitter political relationship, both parties have the same leaning towards extra judicial killings. The Human Rights Watch, Transparency International and Amnesty International have urged to stop the violation of human rights several times. However, no government paid any heed to that. No one from the law enforcement agencies has faced any legal charges to violate the human rights in the name of extra judicial killings.
The issue has become more intense in 2018 when the government went for all-out action against the illicit drug business. For the last 15 days, nearly a hundred people have been killed throughout the country in gunfights with police, RAB and other agencies. The law enforcement agencies stated that most of the victims were somehow linked with the illegal drug trade.
However, gunfights cannot be the solution to stop illegal drug business in the country. The government of Colombia has spent nearly 9.5 billion dollars to stop the illegal cocaine business. At least 4.3 million people have been killed till 2016 in different operations with law enforcement agencies in Colombia. However, the country has failed to stop the cocaine cultivation and distribution. In Mexico, 60,000 people have been killed by the law enforcement agencies during 2006-2012 but the operations failed to stop the 49.4 billion US dollar annual business of the illegal drugs. Reports suggest that all these countries are facing a fragile criminal justice system with lack of confidence in the system. The killings are making the system more fragile.
In Bangladesh, steps should be taken to strengthen the system, not to make it more fragile. If the government of Bangladesh fails to do so, it will create further mistrust towards the law enforcement agencies, judiciary as well as in the government. Sometimes we often forget the phrase: what goes around, comes around.