The death of the 13-year-old Rajon, who had just entered his teen years, and the manner in which he was killed, have rattled the nation where death in all its manifestations, normal or abnormal, is a regular visitor. His death became national news not because of 64 marks of inhumanity inflicted on his body by a group that included a guard, an expatriate, and just a bunch of average other Bangladeshis. It became news in the media because the killers video-taped their gruesome act and then posted it on the Internet from where it made it to social media and went viral.
Would Rajon’s death become the sensational news that it did had the video not been released on the Internet from where it went to social media and, ultimately, the national media? The question begs an answer because of the impunity with which such murders are being committed in the country these days; the increase in numbers of these murders and the killers not only getting away with the murders, but also daring to ridicule the law.
Rajon’s death has articulated the fear among the people that it is not just those who are politically connected who dare make issues of legality secondary to their wishes and desires, but there are many who have no political links who are treating the law the same way.
The issues to ponder in the case of the death of Rajon are indeed many. Rajon was accused of stealing a rickshaw van. What happened thereafter is not anything new in this country. The group that killed him did what has been happening in the country as long as one can remember. The group took the law into their hands and became the judge and jury and declared Rajon guilty and punished him. Even Rajon’s age and the heartlessness of the killers did not make his murder stand out as exceptional.
The fact that these hyenas video-taped their gruesome act on a cell phone and then put the video on the Internet is what makes Rajon’s murder exceptional and begs of everyone in Bangladesh to seek the answer, because his death has exposed the weakness in the very foundations that make a country civilised, namely the rule of law.
Philosophers from the times of Socrates to the present who have written on political science have stated unequivocally that the rule of law is the litmus test to differentiate a civilised country from an uncivilised one. That rule of law means that no earthly power can save individuals and groups when the law catches up with them.
Violations of the rule of law in Bangladesh these days, from simple ones to those as gruesome as that of Rajon’s murder are apparent from the impunity with which such crimes are committed, where the law cannot and often does not punish the violators. Many violate the law with impunity because they know their political connections place them above the law. In imperfect societies, despite the desirability of the rule of law, those who enjoy political power tend to manipulate the law discreetly but only to small degrees.
Rajon’s case has brought the country face to face with the dangerous reality that those who violate the law in Bangladesh are no longer discreet, and the degrees to which such acts occur have crossed the red line and that not all who commit such acts have political connections.
None of Rajon’s killers, for instance, is politically connected and are all average, faceless Bangladeshis. Yet, it is the nature of politics in the country and its impact on the rule of law that encouraged them to kill because they believed for good reasons that even they could get away as easily as those with political connections because of the fragile nature of the rule of law.
Thus, Rajon’s principal killer was allowed by the law-enforcing agencies to flee to Saudi Arabia for a bribe, as reported in the media. There are good reasons to believe he and his fellow killers would not have fallen into their present predicament had they not also been a bunch of idiots to put the video up on the Internet.
The impunity of these killers in Bangladesh, both connected politically and not, are of course the fallout of the present nature of politics in the country. The law-enforcing agencies have been dangerously politicised. They have openly admitted to committing extra-judicial killings and even boasted that they keep the party in power. There is no opposition in the parliament to protest these extra-judicial killings that underline very simply, that the rule of law has become suspect in the country.
And the fate of civil society, particularly those engaged in human rights, is pitiable. It is as absurdly politicised as the political parties and the structures that are needed to ensure the rule of law. Therefore, highly educated members of civil society do not see anything wrong with the nature of politics in the country and, in their minds, accept the extra judicial-killings as politically necessary. Those who are willing to expose the grave ills in the context of the rule of law do not dare to act, ironically, because of fear of the law that exposes a dangerous double standard that is contrary to the rule of law.
Thus in Bangladesh, those connected politically have simply forgotten that the law applies to them. And they, in turn, have corrupted the law-enforcing agencies that now behave like they have the right to decide where to interpret the law and where not to. In the process, there are not many who believe that if they sought justice under the law, the law would stand behind them.
In fact, many citizens these days find that the legal and constitutional guarantees for justice are really no guarantees because the nature of politics has contaminated the rule of law in a manner where even those who are not politically connected can keep the law at bay and commit any crime they want.
Rajon’s death has underlined these sad and unfortunate truths in Bangladesh’s body politic. So far, those who killed Rajon have been arrested. No one is confident whether they will be punished, because there are so many such murders that have been committed in recent times that have caused national outcry, and yet, justice went a-begging.
Most importantly, no one is talking of those in the law-enforcing agency that facilitated the escape of the principal in Rajon’s murder to Saudi Arabia, let alone of the need to bring them into the net of the law and the greater issue of the lack of rule of law, in the country. Therefore, even if Rajon’s killers are hanged, the issue of the rule of law in the country set aside, it would be like a doctor treating a patient for a cold while in denial about his or her dangerously failing heart.
Rajon’s gruesome death should wake the nation from its deep slumber over the deteriorating status of rule of law in the country, to fight for establishing it meaningfully. Can the nation in its present political predicament do it? At the moment, it looks very unlikely.
