The families of two teenagers killed in Mohammadpur during a clash of Awami League factions ahead of the general election have been robbed of justice.

The family members of one of the victims said police submitted the final report in the case without talking to them. The report mentioned no clash even though it was widely covered by the media at that time. It termed the incident an “accident”.

Councillor Tarequzzaman Rajib of ward-33 also threatened the father of one of the victims not to file a murder case, they said. 

A case was filed after the November 10, 2018, incident and the father of one of the teens was made the plaintiff.  

The father maintains he did not file the case and that the signature on the case document could not be his since he is illiterate. He said Councillor Rajib put a gun to his head and told him to do as he said after the incident. 

The families opened up to this paper only after Rajib was arrested this week. 

On the morning of November 10, 2018, a procession of vehicles, largely comprised of flatbeds, with supporters of AL leader Sadek Khan was going towards the AL Dhanmondi office to buy nomination paper for Sadek’s candidacy in the polls.  

Mohammad Sujon, 19, and Arif Hossain, 14, were on one of the pickup trucks when the procession was attacked allegedly by the men of rival AL leader and then lawmaker Jahangir Kabir Nanak.  

During the melee Sujon and Arif fell off the vehicle and the driver, trying to avoid the brick chunks being hurled at the pickup, reversed and ran the two over, according to case documents, news reports, witness accounts, and statements of the families.  

Sujan and Arif died in hospital. 

Arif’s father Faruk Hossain was taken to a community centre in Mohammadpur when he was on his way to the hospital. He was confined there for 12 hours by Rajib’s men, Faruk told The Daily Star.  

Late at night, Rajib, reportedly Nanak’s ally, at the community centre told Faruk to go to the police station to talk about getting the body of his son. 

Faruk then went to the police station, gave his details, and told the officials there what he knew about the incident. He had no idea that police were filing a case making him the plaintiff. The police officials there asked him to identify the body at the Suhrawardy hospital, Faruk said.  

On his way to the hospital from the police station, two men stopped him near Shia Masjid and took him to Rajib’s home.  

Rajib told him at gunpoint to do as he said regarding the matter, Faruk told The Daily Star.  

“You wouldn’t get anything if you file a murder case. Instead, you will be harassed and face the same consequences as your son. You are from Lalmonhon of Bhola and so am I. Do what I say. You will get a good compensation,” Faruk quoted Rajib as saying. 

Faruk eventually identified his son’s body the next day.

Faruk said, “After the incident, I thought it was police who were the plaintiff in the case.

“This is my NID, sir. See, I can’t sign,” Faruk showed his NID to this correspondent which had his thumb print. 

Faruk said not a single police officer talked to him about the investigation since then. 

Sujon’s uncle Md Riaz told The Daily Star last night that the police never talked to them either.

He said councillor Rajib had promised them compensation and jobs for family members but he never delivered.

Sujon’s family did not know that the final report was submitted. They heard it first from The Daily Star correspondent.

After “investigating” the case for 11 months, police submitted the final report terming the incident an “accident”.

Police had arrested convener of Jubo League’s Adabar Thana unit Arifur Rahman Tuhin in connection with leading the attack but in the final report police said they found no evidence of Tuhin’s involvement.  

Rajib, on behalf of then MP Nanak, had given Arif’s family Tk 30,000 and Sujon’s family Tk 25,000 as burial cost. 

After the incident, AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader said the prime minister directed the authorities concerned to submit a probe report over the incident within two days. 

Whoever is found involved would be given exemplary punishment, he had said, adding that the prime minister wanted to know “who destroyed the peaceful election environment”. 

Sub-Inspector Mukul Ranjan of Mohammadpur police station, investigation officer (IO) of the case, said they submitted the final report of the case in the first week of this month as they could not find any evidence or witnesses. 

Police also could not identify the pickup truck and its driver. 

In the final report, police said the two factions of the ruling party came “face to face” near Mohammadi Homes Ltd on November 10 when the unidentified driver reversed in a hurry and could not see what was behind him. This led to the two getting run over.  

The SI in his investigation found no evidence of the clash. He only said the two faction came “face to face”. The media, however, had extensive coverage of the incident.  

They reported that the attackers, armed with hammers, sharp weapons and brick chunks, swooped on the procession of vehicles.  

The IO said said Faruk did not know what had actually happened and had “filed the case” based on hearsay.  

Taking to this newspaper, the SI claimed that he did not find anything in CCTV footage and no local wanted to be a witness. 

Asked why the IO never contacted Faruk, the IO first claimed that he had contacted him but later said they could not reach him. 

The IO claimed that Faruk had indeed filed the case.  

At one stage of the conversation with this correspondent, the IO said he had written the final report with direction from a superior officer of Tejgaon Division Police. 

Anisur Rahman, deputy commissioner (Tejgaon division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star that he had no knowledge about the development of the case as he joined the division only a few months ago. 

“I will have to see the documents,” he added. 

In November last year, Nanak said he had nothing to do with the attack on the procession.  

Sadek had said that he did not want to blame anyone and demanded a proper investigation. 

The Daily Star could not reach Nanak and Sadek for comments over the last few days.

It felt like déjà vu when State Minister for Information Tarana Halim, just days into joining the ministry, delivered her "Banglish" judgment. According to media reports, the minister has directed radio stations to avoid using "Bangreji" or "Banglish," a reference to the modern-day practice of speaking a mix of Bangla and English, with sometimes anglicised pronunciations of the Bangla alphabets. She also reportedly instructed the stations to use "correct" Bangla.

Just weeks ago, a similar announcement came from the man who would be put in charge of her former office, the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology. Mustafa Jabbar said he wouldn't entertain any letter written in English at his ministry. It has to be in Bangla.

Normally, statements like these are orchestrated to please populist sentiments: They excite the crowd for a while, the speaker is showered with praise for saying the "right" thing, but eventually nothing happens. Halim's was also greeted with cheers. It was in part a response to concerns among academics and linguists about the increasing tendency to speak a distorted form of Bangla by radio jockeys and others. In February last year, while inaugurating an event observing the International Mother Language Day, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also expressed her concern about Banglish. She made an impassioned appeal to the youth to avoid the tendency, which she likened to an "epidemic," and urged the educationalists to find a way to prevent it.

The debate over Banglish goes back nearly a decade. It started after the proliferation of private television and radio stations and the rise of social media when people's distinct linguistic choices became more apparent. There seems to be a general consensus that Bangla and English should not be mixed. That understanding, however, hasn't translated into action especially in quarters deemed particularly responsible for promoting the mix. But coming up with a ministerial directive to stop it, or imposing Bangla over English for that matter, is unprecedented and marks a radical shift in policy responses to our fast-changing linguistic pattern.

As the authority for the private television and radio stations in Bangladesh, part of the responsibility of the information ministry is to see if the guideline for the establishment and management of privately owned FM stations (2010) is being followed. The guideline basically outlines what can and cannot be broadcast, among other things. A quick inspection will, however, reveal that there is no directive on the kind of language that can be used, which means the over-two-dozen FM radio stations in the country are actually free to choose how they communicate as long as they are not in violation of the content policy or other terms of engagement.

So despite the popular anti-Banglish sentiment that played a key role in the instruction, the ministry's move seems like an unnecessary intervention in a matter that should have been left to the academics, as the prime minister had suggested.

Some online commentators talked about our "linguistic integrity" to justify the move. They have a point—but linguistic integrity is itself a debatable issue as no language is immune to changes. And much as we love the form of Bangla that we have inherited, it is bound to evolve with time. Addition, alteration and distortion are but ways through which a language evolves.

Speaking of changes, when Bankim Chandra Chatterjee brought about his own, combining several words to form a single, larger one, and Kazi Nazrul Islam offered a unique blend of languages in Bidrohi, initially they were looked upon suspiciously. I am not trying to make a comparison between those changes and this new phenomenon called Banglish, but the fact remains that some changes and trends are inevitable, and only time can decide whether or not they are going to stick around. Bangla Academy's own troubled experience with the non-establishment writers and linguists has shown that any attempt at imposition is bound to fail.

Ironically, Bangla has historically been dependent on other languages for its development. A majority of Bangla words came from other languages including modified, unmodified and corrupted forms of Sanskrit words, as well as loanwords from various other sources. Language, like culture, is ever-evolving, and with globalisation allowing languages and cultures to mingle at a scale never seen before, the pace of evolution will only quicken, whether we like it or not.

So how to deal with Banglish? Should it be through legislation or through education and advocacy? Which approach is most effective, which least restrictive of freedom of expression? The answer is pretty simple if we consider the Constitutional provision on people's freedom of speech, which means any restriction on it, legal or otherwise, would be unconstitutional.

In any case, there is a legitimate fear that an administrative action to combat linguistic changes/distortions will set a dangerous precedent for how future cases in matters of language and culture are to be settled. What we need to understand here is that the way to fight ideas and thoughts is not through force but through counter-activism.

Since Banglish has proved to have a disturbing influence on the younger generation, there may be some kind of a bulwark against it—a social movement, to be specific, involving the parents, teachers and the media to slowly wean the youth off this habit. In the end, any change that is expected should be spontaneous, from a change of heart, not of circumstances.

Badiuzzaman Bay is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.

Email: [email protected]

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