Bangladeshi media is rife with stories of corruption, especially committed by the BNP-led government that ruled Bangladesh from 2001 to 2006.

Sadly, the pioneer in corruption studies, who recently passed away in his Kuala Lumpur home, will miss this rich data.

Some commentators often say that corruption has always been around and it exists everywhere, even in America. To this my reply is: if you treat corruption as a social disease -- a crime -- then it is not the existence of corruption but the absence of concrete steps against corruption that makes Bangladesh unique.

To those who say there is corruption in America, look at Enron, I would reply: but where is Enron now? A multi-billion dollar company, the seventh largest corporation in America has vanished and with it the accounting firm Anderson.

The culprits of Enron are in jail and the company vice-chairman committed suicide, apparently to protect his honour.

Another point that corruption in Bangladesh has existed since the country's birth is also unhelpful because it ignores the scale of corruption. The striking difference between BNP rule of 1991-1996 and 2001-2006 is a case in point.

Another defeatist view is that of cultural relativism: corruption is an integral part of certain cultures. Professor Alatas disputed that claim as a mere excuse. One has to separate the culture of gift from extortion and plunder.

Professor Alatas once told me that corruption is a crime and should be treated as such. It is possible to see a society move from high level of tolerance for corruption to zero-tolerance of corruption.

Singapore provides a very good example. In the Transparency International Report, Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries in the world alongside New Zealand, Denmark and Finland.

Between 1986 and 1996 Singapore had two important cases of corruption. One involving the minister for housing who was accused of malpractices. As he was about to be investigated, he committed suicide.

In the second case, a ministry of defence official's name surfaced in the Bofors scandal. He was summarily dismissed, tried and sent to jail. The sequence of crime and punishment warns potential perpetrators of crime.

One has to be made aware of the certainty of the delivery of punishment and the cost of crime. The cost of crime must be higher than the benefits.

In a recent case, when a Singapore Airlines crew was caught for ill-begotten property, he was punished and his property auctioned off and the money was returned to the airlines.

Can there be VIP corruption suspects? Why not? Here VIP does not mean "Very Important Person" rather it means Very Important Plunderer or Very Important Pillager.

Pillage or plunder are surely better descriptions of what happened in Bangladesh in recent years. As a victim of crime, the house where we grew up in Bagerhat was plundered by Silver Salim, the BNP law-breaker (surely, not law-maker), I don't need additional proof of the rampage of plunder.

The Daily Star of February 1 provides rich data on corruption stories of Mossadeq Ali Falu, who among other things also stole a by-election in Dhaka.

The meteoric growth of Falu's wealth -- assuming that he is not a magician -- was the result of corruption. This was public knowledge. Yet, sadly, a group of doctors in Bangladesh gave Falu a reception following his fraudulent electoral "victory."

If we are serious about fighting the culture of corruption, we need to identify those doctors and their leaders and invite them to face the media to explain their conduct.

If they fail, exemplary punishment should be given to them to restore dignity in the medical profession.

Following the Danish embassy accusation of corruption, rather than punishing the offender, the BNP government not only defended the corrupt minister, it made the diplomat apologize.

When a certain gas-meter reader was caught in Dhaka airport as he was on his way to Singapore for holiday with his family, the minister rather than starting legal action against the criminal meter reader/businessman, defended him by saying he only makes a little money by reading meters and accused the journalists of jealousy.

Now before punishing the meter reader the concerned minister should be punished for protecting and encouraging crime.

Punishment of the criminal must go hand in hand with recovery of the looted wealth and property. The recovered wealth must be spent on such important projects as housing, building new schools and hospitals for the poor.

As the unauthorized land is recovered from the slum-dwellers, they should be rehabilitated in new housing colonies where cash from Falu and his fellow criminals will be quite handy.

Spend part of the recovered wealth as compensation to the cheated migrant labourers who have been defrauded by criminal manpower agents like Silver Salim.

Corruption erodes development, now is time to plough back money recovered from the corrupt politicians and businessmen back into development and welfare of Bangladesh.

The author is a sociologist whose paper "Sociology of Corruption and the Corruption of Sociology" appeared in Current Sociology, 54 (1), 2006.