What happened to the army guy?

Amazingly, our memory is very short lived. May be that’s how we have developed our survival skill as we feel content in denial and amnesia. Right now, we’re extending our appreciation to the Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed. His conciliatory and balanced tone for regaining trust in the current military backed administration has been widely hailed by all the corners of our civil society. I don’t want to undermine his conciliatory gesture as we’re grateful to his declaration that the military won’t pursue anymore troublemakers(?) in Dhaka University who transformed public protest to a huge civil unrest.

Bangladesh military establishment was badly shaken by the gravity of the student-public protest in Dhaka University incident last month that the Army couldn't even dare to dream. They took huge revenge by shutting down mobile network after they ordered to vacate halls within couple of hours. They made thousands of people stranded in the street by imposing a short notice curfew in a busy evening. They started beating students and journalists on the streets of the cities. They took professors into custody and tortured them and made them apologize publicly. The army finally came up with story of the foreign and invisible hands behind all this huge mishap in Dhaka University. As fatalistic by nature, we swallowed their story as our conscious minds have been muted and tuned to forget, forgive and move forward to the next episode.

Daily Star reports on September 11, 2007,

“Police charged four Dhaka University (DU) teachers and 32 others including 15 DU students with instigating violent student protests on the university campus and at other places in the city last month”.

”The charge sheeted teachers are already detained DU Teachers' Association (Duta) General Secretary Prof Anwar Hossain and Sciences Faculty Dean Prof Harun-or-Rashid and Duta President Prof Sadrul Amin and applied physics department Chairman Prof Neem Chandra Bhowmik”.

We applaud when Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed announced,

“On recent student protest on the Dhaka University campus that led the government to impose curfew and shut down universities and colleges in divisional headquarters, the chief adviser lamented that it was an unfortunate incident.

He said the police filed cases against 36 suspects, including four teachers and 14 students of Dhaka University in this connection.

Fakhruddin assured that no other persons would be sued or harassed in connection with the campus incidents and final report would be given by pardoning others, including thousands of anonymous people against whom police filed FIR” (Daily Star, September 11, 2007).

Chief Adviser carefully omitted the fact about the military guy who began this episode in Dhaka University by beating a student. He forgot to mention about the status of the investigation. He may have forgotten about the ISPR Press Release,

"An enquiry has been initiated by the army into the 'unfortunate incident' that took place yesterday (Monday) on the Dhaka University playground, and the investigation would be concluded as soon as possible, and action against those found responsible will be taken," said an official statement after the meeting.

Meantime, the army person responsible for Monday's soccer match incident was withdrawn from the army camp on the DU campus yesterday, and an investigation against him has begun, said an ISPR press release. (Daily Star, August 22, 2007).

I don’t blame Mr. Fakhruddin as he reminded us to submit ourselves to the power house. How can he escape the gravity of the military power that governs this land of 145 million helpless people? Who cares about that the mischief of one army guy when justice is done by limiting cases against only 36 civilian suspects?