A long time ago, I read a book on Surya Sen -- the revolutionary from Chittagong who fought the British colonial power with arms in the 1930s. Unfortunately, I forgot the name of the book, but I still remember some of the events described in it.
When Surya Sen, along with some members of his small Republican Army, took shelter in the Jalalabad hills, the British troops -- most of them were Indian sepoys -- got engaged in a battle with them on April 22, 1930.
In the unequal fight, 14 revolutionaries lost their lives; many were arrested, some of them managed to flee, including Surya Sen. The British buried the Republican Army fighters playing the last post on the bugle.
Surya Sen stayed in hiding to reorganise his group. To avoid arrest, he kept moving from one place to another. In February 1933, he was hiding in a house at Gairala village in Patiya (Chittagong).
The greedy house owner betrayed him and revealed his hiding to the police to receive a cash award from the government. When police, with a Gurkha contingent of British Army, arrived at the village to capture him, the sun had already started to set.
As it was not permissible, under the law, for police to enter a house between sunset and sunrise, they, and the Gurkha contingent surrounded the house and waited outside till sunrise. Next day, at dawn, they entered the house and arrested Surya Sen. This was the respect the British colonial master used to show to their subjects.
These days, in Bangladesh, we often come across news about members of a law enforcment agency entering houses of citizens in the middle of the night to conduct a search or to make arrests. What is going wrong with this country?
At present, people don’t have the civil rights which they used to enjoy during the colonial period, when they were mere subjects of the colonial masters; but now they are supposed to be citizens of an independent country.
The government is their own government, not the master. Three million people sacrificed their lives for the liberation of this country. The freedom fighters fought for nine months to realise the dream of independence of the compatriots.
If the law regarding police not entering the house of a citizen during the time between sunset and sunrise has become rusty from lack of use, let’s polish it new. If the law is lost from the criminal procedural code of the country during its amendments, let us reintroduce it. Progress, not regress, in the civil rights enjoyed by the citizens should be our target.
We must not forget that the human rights situation in Bangladesh is constantly under the radar of international communities and human rights watchers.
To preserve law and order in the country, the government needs to arrest criminals and suspects, both white collar and blue collar. Political opponents can also be arrested, given that there is ample evidence that they are disrupting the law or working against national interests. But all these arrests must be transparent and be made according to the law of the land.
If the sunset-sunrise law is reintroduced and obeyed by the law enforcers, it might not only improve the human rights situation in the country, but also save the government from embarrassment at home and abroad caused by the disappearance of citizens, whether a political opponent or not, during night time.
Also, this law of not arresting a suspect by entering his/her house at night will not only save the government from embarrassment, at the same time, it will drastically reduce the kidnappings by criminals impersonating as members of law enforcment. The ultimate blame for these sorts of kidnappings might fall on the government.
We often blame our law enforciment agencies for any untoward incidents in the country. We must not forget that our law enforcment agencies are not well-equipped or well-trained; they are overstretched, understaffed, and overworked.
Under all these constraints, they are working hard. Each and every member of these agencies needs to be trained on understanding and respecting civil and human rights.
Blaming law enforcment agencies will not serve the purpose. They do as they are instructed. So, putting blame on them is “one doth the scathe and another hath the scorn.” Almost all the time, such forces are used for political purposes.
Today, they may be used to suppress political opponents, without giving a damn about civil and human rights, tomorrow, when the opponents are in power, the same story shall be repeated. The human rights condition needs attention now, if there are to be any changes in the future.
