Editor’s Note: Normalcy returning to country

Published Date: 25-Jul-2024 | 02:00 PM
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Azizul Islam Bhuiyan


This is considered a happy ending as the student movement across the country against quota system in the government jobs has come to an amicable solution with their demand satisfactorily reflected in the Supreme Court verdict over the issue. In fact, the government had never been against the justified demand of the students who took to the streets on July 1 to press the government to reform the quota system.

But the nation witnessed an apocalyptic situation when the peaceful student movement turned into violent mayhem by the political activists and miscreants that left over 100 people including three policemen dead and several thousand injured.

There was a proof that activists of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat had been lurking among the quota protesters and behind the week-long unrest across the country. It was clear when BNP Secretary General Fakrul Islam made a statement at the fag-end of the peaceful students’ protests saying that this student movement must be metamorphosed into an anti-government weapon. 

That had happened exactly as Fakrul’s incitements had spread among the miscreants of BNP and Jamaat like wild fires and they went berserk throughout the country.  Otherwise, this is inconceivable that quota protesters who were mostly students from the public and private universities and other educational institutions could run amok in such a way that had taken the entire nation by surprise.

This is now clear that anti-government and anti-liberation elements lurking among the quota protesters had reared their head to cash in on the situation in order to destabilize the country. They tried to fish in troubled waters with an attempt to topple the government by capitalizing on the sentiment of young students.  

Leaders of the anti-quota protesters had already made it clear that the general students were not involved in any sort of violent activities as they had been continuing their agitation peacefully since July 1. They also said they were not responsible for the deaths of students and other people and serious damage to the state properties done by the miscreants.

The whole nation was shocked, stilled and then enraged by their inordinate scale of destruction of government properties across the country. Dhaka still bears the brunt of their vandalism as dozens of very critical government establishments and vital service providing institutions like Bangladesh Television, Internet Data Center, Metro Rail stations, Mayor Hanif Flyover, Padma Bridge, Director General of Health Services, Drug Administration Bhavan, Matsya Bhavan, Elevated Expressway, Awami League offices and other public and private entities came under attack of arsonists and miscreants.

Outside Dhaka, the most horrific incident was the Narsinghdi Jail break. Activists of Jamaat and BNP stormed the district jail of Narsinghdi and managed to make around 850 prisoners escape. Most im portantly, 7 of them are from the banned militant group of Ansarullah Bangla Team and 2 of them are female members of the JMB. They also made off with 85 weapons from the jail’s armory.  This is first time in the history of Bangladesh since our independence in 1971 that such kind of biggest jail-break took place in the country.    

When the situation literally spun out of control after such heinous terrorist acts, the government was impelled to impose a nation-wide curfew from Friday midnight to prevent further loss of lives and properties with the deployment of armed forces to aid civil administration.

But everyday’s life has started to return to normal from an apocalyptic  situation as the curfew was extended for another two days until today (Thursday) but relaxed for seven hours from 10am to 5pm to facilitate the movement of general people. However, the government did not extend the general holidays after three days. As a result, offices of all the government, semi-government, autonomous bodies and other private organizations started functioning from Wednesday.

 

Meanwhile, the government was also able to restore the broadband Internet services after five days from Tuesday midnight.  The Internet outage had actually left the entire nation in the dark and disconnected Bangladesh from the outside world. 

 

With the relaxation of the curfew, inter-district transportation has been restored and agricultural produce mainly perishable goods have started entering Dhaka and other major cities where there have been acute shortages of these items. This is why prices of some essential commodities went up exorbitantly in the urban areas causing immense sufferings to the citizenry from all strata especially those who scrape by on their daily earnings.   

 

But we strongly believe that normalcy will return to the country shortly as our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has assured the nation that the government will rein in the terrorists as soon as possible.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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