Chintito

Forgive Us, Dear Parents

Chintito

The lifeless body of one's offspring is the heaviest burden on the human shoulder; nay to any animal. On 9 Dec we were reminded once again that we Bangladeshis are beasts tagged as humans.

The pain of seeing that child being slaughtered in broad daylight on the street of a world capital, frame by frame, is beyond expression, past perhaps also of any feeling. The parents are motionless. The nation is speechless. The world knows not how to condemn such daylight viciousness.

This was a meaningless murder with the motive undefined, as there are no gainers, least of all the Students League whose members have been named by the media for the brutal assault.

The objective of a politically-backed student organisation is to enhance the standing of the political party, to gain opinion in favour of its policies, to garner voters for the elections, and by doing all these to help build the nation. Sadly, no student wing of any party serves that purpose. Violence is only a path to distance away from the glory of the past. This has been one of our biggest national losses, knowing what heroic roles students and their organisations have played in our independence, liberation, and our right to speak in Bangla.

This was not a killing under anonymous circumstances. This cannot be swept aside as a shootout.

That ill-fated morning the dead grimaced in pain when struck at point- blank, ran hither and thither for someone to recognise him, screamed for some sense to surface among the students, pleaded for the attackers to stop hacking him like cattle in an abattoir, but he was caught in a cage made by people possessed, he never saw his white shirt turn red... and then he was no more. Biswajit had indeed won the world, as he lives on beyond his death. This, believe me, means nothing to his bereaved parents. They shall weep forever.

Rarely has a killing been so graphically documented, and yet no one had the presence of mind to call for help, or muster help from among the witnessing bystanders, as apparently lending a helping hand was not an option in the volatile situation. But the public failed.

The intelligence failed, as it had no inkling that the group had organised themselves with weapons that can kill, and did.

The police, if they were present, seemed outnumbered, but they could fire rubber bullets, release tear gas, or conduct a lathi charge to disperse the assailants. They can in the least now put some of them behind bars. Yes, they failed, and are failing.

We are now forty-one years old as an independent country. Yet we have been unable to convey to the perpetrators of crime that they will not go unpunished. They did and do. Unconvincing as we are because of corruption within, we have failed as a nation.

The only way left for us to demonstrate that we are still human is for us to seek forgiveness from the numb father and mother of Biswajit, and his family. They will say nothing. There will be no acceptance speech, as they have lost their voice. There will have no consolation for them because each son is one of a kind. They will not even forgive us because they will never again get to touch him. Their lives have changed for good. They were happy even when their lives were bad.

Dear parents of Biswajit, for the unpardonable crime committed on your son, for the manner in which an innocent soul was robbed of its body, for being unable to compensate your loss by any means, on behalf of the people of this country, of all ages, sex, religion, and political ideology, which includes the newspapers, the television channels, the bystanders that fateful morning, the police, the intelligence bodies, the administration, the political parties, the politicians as individuals, the civil society, students, teachers, workers, the unemployed, the government servants, the privately employed, lawyers, doctors, engineers, diplomats, architects, bankers, insurers, diploma holders, personnel serving in the armed forces, the border guards, the ansars, businesspeople, industrialists, painters, performers, poets, authors, freedom fighters, farmers, traders, and all service providers, this is to say that we are really sorry. Please forgive us, even if it is not possible.

We are all responsible in our own way.

Let us all offer a prayer that such a killing does not happen again.

Only they can feel the pain when they have lost a dear one; Biswajit's parents have.

 

<chintitoforever@gmail.com>

---