After keeping a continuous watch
On the malcontents and the cross patch
One of the miscreants was arrested.
And in the follow-up action no time was wasted.

On being hard pressed on an interrogation
The miscreant made a clean confession
Of concealing arms and ammunition
In an abandoned near-by spot,
A junkyard by the graveyard, not
Far from the place where he was caught.
Law and order men were led to that spot
And before they reached there,
There was a gunshot from nowhere.
Law and order men, fired upon, fired back in self-defence
And the ensued crossfire was murderously dense
And the miscreant was fatally hit.
Don't you think it as a story well-knit?

Who did first fire?
Who did next fire?
To make it a case of crossfire?
Was it case of mindless brushfire?
In every case of death in crossfire
Does the death report inspire
Any conviction or credence?
That law and order men fired in self-defence?

Each report raises more questions than answers
And it appears
To have been written on dotted lines of a form
Filled up casually, dull and uniform.

Each of the reports needed a grinning skull
And crossbones on the top to mull
Over the death in crossfire
That hardly does inspire
Any conviction or credence
And there were exactly similar antecedents.

After the death reports' monotonous tedium
Laudamus, Te Deum.
Let us have a short requiem:
Peace be on all those men
Who died in crossfire. Amen! And Amen!

Muhammad Habibur Rahman is a former Chief Justice and former Chief Advisor to the Caretaker Government.