ACCORDING to information received form the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, the DMP has arrested more than a thousand people on political grounds between January 5 and February 6. 76 percent of those are BNP cadres and the rest Jamaat's. More interestingly, of the thousand arrested, only 157 have been arrested from the spot of occurrence of the incidents while the more than 800 of those arrested have been rounded up as a preemptive measure to prevent, according to the DMP, destructive acts. 

While this only gives the picture of the arrests in the capital city we wonder what the figure of such political arrests, particularly the anticipatory arrests, might be in other places of the country. Our cause for concern stems for the so-called anticipatory arrests and the basis of those. As the leading Bangla daily has reported yesterday, in Dhaka city it is from the list prepared by local AL leaders that the so called preventive arrests are being made by the police. We wonder why the police have to depend on the ruling party cadres for this purpose. And if it does not smack of political vengeance against opposition than what does?

We are all for the police and law enforcing agencies to stop the ongoing violence remaining within the laid down rules. But such reckless method of arresting on the basis of information from ruling party cadres sets a bad example and basically corrodes public confidence in the rule of law. Further, we feel that such examples may be replicated in future.