Judged by the general situation witnessed all over the country, it is inferred from the facts of repressions, recriminations, victimizations and other untoward incidents taking place every now and then all over the country that violence has become a pastime in many cases for the scions of influential families of politicians and nouveaux riches.
These depraved youths have to some extent gone out of control of their families. Initially they are groomed to take on their opponents and opposition political parties and as years wear on, the elder members of these families find it difficult to prevent them even from becoming Frankenstein. They are seen trying to rein in their families and misbehaving themselves with their kith and kin.
Examples of such repressions and violent occurrences abound. The most recent sensational one was the attack on a Navy officer Wasif Ahmed Khan by Irfan Selim, son of lawmaker Haji Mohammed Selim from Dhaka-7 constituency. This assault on the Navy officer prompted police and RAB to swoop on Irfan Selim's house and subsequently put him behind the bars after law enforcing agencies seized illegal firearms, liquor, walkie-talkies and handcuffs from his den.
Irfan Selim has established a reign of terror in his locality in the old town of Dhaka. He and his gangs have long been involved in land grabbing, extortion, torture, encroachment of both government and private properties and other nefarious activities. He is a hedonist living a high life surrounded by a group of armed bodyguards who usually make way for his motorcade with blowing whistle when it passes through the street. His one of the favourite pastimes is to enjoy a night time walk at dead of night with his acolytes and to unnecessarily accost people whenever they are encountered by him on his way.
In the beginning, Haji Selim apparently condoned his son's despotic behaviour. As time went on, Irfan Selim became a thorn in the flesh of his family and his father and other siblings became helpless under his mayhem. He used to assault his elder brother Solaiman Selim and sent his younger brother Ashik Selim to Australia on false premise.
Irfan Selim has eventually outdone his father older Selim in terms of holding a sway over the entire Selim family and his business empire. He took control of all business interests under Selim family's Madina Group after his father suffered a brain stroke and became speechless in early 2016. At one stage, he forced his father to hand over all his properties to him and when the older Selim refused to do it, Irfan Selim reportedly prevented his father from coming out of his home for many months.
Another identical story is about the son of the octogenarian Deputy Leader of the House of Parliament Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, Ayman Akbar Bablu, who has become the headache of the Sajeda family. Not too long ago, irked by Bablu, Sajeda Chowdhury left her government allocated Gulshan residence and started living with her younger son, Sadab Akbar at Dhanmandi. Sajeda informed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina alleging that her son has been engaged in an assortment of unsavoury practices such as assaulting party workers, cronyism and corruption, manipulation and filling false cases against innocent people to serve his personal interests.
Bablu has taken the ownership of a 5-Katha plot allocated to Sajeda Chowdhury by the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) at Banani under false pretences. He purportedly got the papers of the plot signed by his mother as collateral for a bank loan when his father Golam Akbar Chowdhury was convalescing from some serious diseases at a city hospital. Sajeda has already filed a petition with the Joint District Judge of Dhaka-1 to nullify the transfer documents of the land from Bablu's name.
In his locality at Saltha in Faridpur where he is the incumbent Awami League Upazila President, Bablu was once declared 'unwanted' and labelled a 'godfather of drug trade' by the Saltha Upazila Drugs and Terrorism Prevention Committee. His younger brother, Sadab Akbar, was sentenced to 12 years in jail on charges of amassing illegal assets and hiding wealth information in 2008.
There are many others who have been made culpable in various cases and untoward incidents but have enjoyed extraordinary impunity. Shabab Chowdhury, son of Noakhali-4 lawmaker Ekramul Karim Chowdhury was accused of being complicit in a road accident death while he was driving a car in Dhaka. Shabab Chowdhury, brother-in-law of Irfan Selim, was also involved in a recent road mishap when his car rammed the police vehicle in Chittagong.
Another much-hyped case was the murder of Advocate Nurul Islam, the then organising secretary of Laxmipur BNP in 2000 in which Aftab Uddin Biplob, elder son of Laxmipur Municipality Mayor and Awami League leader Abu Taher, was sentenced to death. Biplob was later pardoned from the death row by the then President Zillur Rahman. Ayon Osman, son of lawmaker Shamim Osman from Narayanganj-4 has been accused in the gruesome Tanvir Mohammad Twaki murder case.
In our country, the rich and famous politicians have established alienated polities in which their sons and workers have been given carte blanche to cavort at their will. As a result, they have gradually created a dystopian society with letting these youths get away with all their evil deeds. These politicians should keep in mind that if they play these youngsters today they will get played by them tomorrow.
The writer is a senior journalist
