Around midday on February 19, machinery trader Sabbir Hossain Sayem was going home to Narinda in Old Dhaka from Karwan Bazar on a rickshaw.
When he reached the Shapla intersection in Motijheel, a hand-made bomb went off nearby. He jumped off the rickshaw and tried to run to safety but on-duty police started chasing him down, thinking he was the one who exploded the bomb, and eventually got hold of him.
When the law enforcers were taking him towards a nearby police outpost, an angry mob grabbed him and started beating him up right in front of the lawmen.
Needless to say, neither the mob nor the police personnel were in any mood to hear Sayem’s desperate cries that he had absolutely nothing to do with the blast.
Sayem is now undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) with one of his kidneys badly damaged from the beating.
His family owns a shop named “Digital Machinery” in the Sundarban Square mall in Gulistan in the capital.
On that day, Sayem went to deliver a digital scale to a shop named “Shajahan Hardware” in Karwan Bazar. This Dhaka Tribune correspondent went to that shop and confirmed that Sayem had gone there that day, delivered the package and received Tk15,500 as payment.
Ershad Mollah, a staff of Digital Machinery, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Sayem is a very gentle person. This much I can confirm because I know him from close quarters. It is hard to believe that he could set off bombs.”
According to Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), a human rights body, at least 22 people have been lynched by vigilante mobs around the country in the past two months – 13 of them in January and nine in February.
ASK sources said most of these people were caught by angry mobs on suspicion that they might have been involved in the ongoing political violence.
Since the BNP-led alliance started enforcing blockade and hartals on January 6, at least 88 people have been killed, most of them burned to death mainly in arson attacks on crowded vehicles.
From the beginning, ministers, ruling party leaders and senior officials of the law enforcement agencies have been urging people to help them with information leading to the arrest of arsonists and bombers.
The administration has also announced rewards for helping security forces with such information.
Kazi Saifuddin, professor of psychology at Jagannath University, said: “Peaceful protests are not of any use in this country any more. So, these people have developed this attitude. When they see law enforcers inactive, they look for a way to vent their anger.”
The Dhaka Tribune reporter caught up with the families of victims and survivors of some of these cases of mob beating and all of them claimed that the victims were innocent.
“My brother’s fault was that the bombs went off right in front of his rickshaw and he happened to be the only person nearby. It was a pure coincidence. But police, instead of chasing the real culprits, caught my brother,” said Masud Hossain Shahed, brother of Sayem.
“He had Tk15,500 in his pockets. But the money was gone when he was brought to hospital,” he added.
When contacted, BM Forman Ali, officer-in-charge of Motijheel police station, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Sabbir was trying to escape after setting off a crude bomb in the area when local people caught him and handed him over to us.”
He also said: “No criminal or his family will ever say that they are not innocent. The truth will only come out through investigation and we are doing it.”
Last week, the same thing happened with Basedur Rahman Based, owner of a shop at the City Heart shopping mall in Nayapaltan.
While talking to this reporter at the DMCH, he said: “Around 1pm on March 8, I came to the AGB colony area in Motijheel on a CNG [autorickshaw]. I had Tk1.72 lakh with me, all in Tk1,000 bills. The driver did not have change and so he took the Tk1,000 note and went to find change.
“I was standing near the autorickshaw, waiting for the driver, when suddenly two-three bombs went off near me. Moments later, I was caught by a mob who beat me up and later handed me over to police. They also took away the money that I had on me,” he said.
Alina Khan, chief executive officer of Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation, said: “People cannot take up law in their hands. If such things continue to happen then it will tarnish the image of the law enforcement agencies ...This will also turn out to be a barrier for good governance.”
Prof Saifuddin said establishing rule of law could be the only solution to this looming social disaster.
On February 15, three teenagers were beaten up severely by an angry mob at the Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka on suspicion that they were behind the crude bomb blast in the area. Later, however, police found them innocent.
On February 23, police claimed that three dead bodies recovered in Mirpur with 54 bullet wounds were “actually lynched and shot to death by an angry mob.”
Contacted, Mokhlesur Rahman, additional inspector general of police, said: “Lynching is a crime. If we get any complaint that someone was killed in mob beating, then we will take appropriate action readily.”