Stop political blame games, ensure justice for communal attacks: TIB

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Chattogram chapter leaders expressed dissatisfaction over the failure of law enforcers and local administration in taking effective actions to stop the week-long communal attacks on Hindus across the country.

"24,000 people were named over the communal attacks following the Cumilla incident but it was not possible to identify real culprits as yet. Stop the political blame game and ensure fair judgment in communal attacks," Akter Kabir Chowdhury, former president of Sonak-TIB Chattogram chapter said at a human chain arranged by TIB in Chattogram.  

Sachetan Nagorik Committee (Sonak)-TIB Chattogram chapter President Anwara Alam presided over the programme arranged in the port city's Lalkhan Bazar area.  

Sonak Chattogram's Youth Engagement and Support (YES) chief Md Jaowadul Karim Jishan read out the TIB's statement at the human chain. 

Engineer Mohammad Delwar Hossain Majumder, also a former president of Sonak-TIB Chattogram chapter, said, "We have not received any information on exemplary punishment for the 3,000 attacks on people of different religions in the last one decade. The culture of impunity, along with political patronage of communal forces fuels the aggressors and perpetrators."

If political patronage is not eliminated forever and exemplary punishment for those responsible for communal attacks is not ensured, it will not be possible to fulfil the spirit of the liberation war, as dreamt by Bangladesh, he added. 

Anwara Alam criticised the failed attempt to prevent violence by stopping the mobile internet service for more than 12 hours, citing technical glitches and restraining the mainstream media from publishing news following the Cumilla incident.

She asked the government, "Why was the report submitted to the Home Ministry in 2012 with several recommendations by the Shahabuddin Commission formed by the High Court in 2009 to investigate the incidents of communal violence over the 2001 elections not published?"

It is the right time to stop communal violence by taking appropriate action by eliminating the practice of forming probe bodies and not publishing probe reports in such incidents, she added.