Discriminations turn society violent

Rampant corruption, political patronisation, and culture of impunity cause discriminations, which eventually make the aggrieved people violent, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Dr Mizanur Rahman said yesterday.

Pointing out the killing of blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy who was "denied the chance to file a general diary by police", he requested people to come to the commission in such cases in the future. "I can assure you we will fight for you to the best of our ability, to root out the culture of impunity," he said.

The NHRC chief was addressing a discussion on "Civilian's Duty to Stop Brutality", organised at the capital's Jatiya Press Club by Sammilito Nagorik Samaj.

Mizanur said there was some kind of social intolerance existing now. "We are getting angry and can't take anything easily. To solve a matter instantly, we are attacking others," he said.

"One major reason of intolerance is merit is not valued properly. Instead of merit, a special kind of allegiance is being preferred. We should think whether this preference has any negative impacts upon the nation," he said.

"Whenever merit is eliminated and other things are considered as qualifications, deprivation and discriminations occur and people go violent," he said.

"Another reason of social restlessness is the breakdown of the rule of law. In many cases, it turns difficult for us to understand if the rule of law exists at all."

Some political parties and their leaders have set examples of barbarism by killing people in arson attacks, he said.

"Have we seen anyone tried for the crime?" Mizanur asked. "It doesn't matter how many types of crime you've committed in this country. If you can take shelter of a political party, you can rest assured because law would not touch you."

Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, a former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, observed that discriminations cause the poor mental stress, which leads to perversion of behaviour.

He called upon people from all strata of life to stand by the victims of violence.

Reading out the introductory speech, economist Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad stressed the need for starting a social movement against all forms of brutality including the killing of women and children.

"Those who kill a child tying him to a tree and publish it on social media or cheer after killing a child by drowning or murdering one by pumping air into his body are beasts," he said.

The degradation of social values and antagonism cause indifference, irresponsibility and cruelty, leading people to kill children, he added.

Prof Zia Rahman, chairman of the criminology department at Dhaka University, said brutality was not stopped as the state mechanism required to address the problem was not working.