Masood Kamal, Senior News Editor, Banglavision:
I felt bad seeing newspaper in the morning. Students are being arrested for joining the protests demanding road safety. The newspaper I went through, had named 99 students arrested. Eid-ul-Azha is just a few days away. It feels really bad to think how grief their parents are in.
I don’t understand if the ongoing crackdown against students was necessary. Were they carrying out any movement to topple the government? If they are provoked by someone else, the latter can be arrested. Why do the children have to land in jail? Is the government gaining something through the mass arrests? Is the police action impacting positively the image the Awami League-led government and its chief
have, to the people. Even some term the development over enthusiasm from a special quarter. If so, the government itself has to step forward to stop this. Or, is there any direction from the police-making level of the government?

It is being said that the demonstration was instigated. Nobody then said that the students’ protest was bad. Even the police and the ruling party’s ministers and lawmakers also praised the protests. High officials of the police then said that the students showed them what to do. The protests are over now. But did we get the roads, for which the protests were held? Or the same old issues are back again on the roads? Then why are not the police being able to do the way of work shown by the students? Is the inaction or failure making them angry, with the continued student arrests appearing as the reflection of their frustration?

I don’t know what is right or wrong. Don’t even know why this is happening. If they were instigated by someone, they must have made a mistake. But does that mistake earn them incarceration? Do the children not have the right to do a mistake by not understanding an issue? Why are not the instigators being brought to the limelight? Had it been done, there could have a scope to be aware of the masterminds in future.