Shredded bodies of trader, son found

[Tehsin]

(Chinaman bhai, we prolly should move this thread to forget cricket, I'll leave that upto you)

Shredded bodies of trader, son found
1,000 businessmen explode in protest, sit today to announce agitation; property of main accused seized
Staff Correspondent

The bodies of a missing Old Dhaka businessman and his son were found in 200 pieces in Gazipur yesterday in one of the most grisly murders over the years, sending shock waves through the city.
The killings of Shamsul Haq and his son Russell Sheikh came to light two days after police found their driver hacked to death in Dhamrai, about 50 kilometres off Dhaka, in the first signs of the macabre incident that underlined security fears of businesspeople.


The 56-year-old and his 29-year-old son went missing after they left home with Tk 2 lakh on Friday after a phone call from Kajal, a close family friend and business partner, accused as the prime suspect in a case filed with Sutrapur Police Station.

Kajal is evading capture, but police arrested a man locally known as Kuttu in Sabujbagh with potential links to the killings.


"How can a human kill another in such a way? It's a bestial act," Russell's sister Yasmin said of the murders that numbed their family.


Locals found two sacks filled with parts of chest and stomach at Bhograo near Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway shortly before 7:00am and alerted police.


Two hours later and eight kilometres off the scene of the first recovery, police retrieved two skinned heads and four severed wrists in a pack at Nanduail Eidgah field.


Witnesses said four legs from the knee down were found in Bimbazar -- half a kilometre from Nanduail -- and four pairs of gloves and scraps of human flesh were discovered wrapped in layers of newspaper and polythene and duct-taped in two large travel bags at Bhawal National Park.


Police pieced together the body parts and facial skins and matched them with the newspaper pictures of Haq and Russell.

The assembled human remains were sent to Gazipur Sadar Hospital for autopsy and informed the victims' family in Dhaka. In-laws of Haq and Russell identified the bodies on the afternoon.


Back in Dhaka, police retrieved frozen upper thighs of the father and the son in two large bags from the sidewalk of a Dhanmondi road at about 4:00pm.

Earlier, 19 pieces of their bodies were recovered from two locations in Dhanmondi hours after the body of driver Moazzem was found in the rear seat of a car in Dautia village near Dhamrai Police Station at 11:30pm Friday.

- thedailystar.net

[Carte Blanche]

Oh my God! This is simply sadistic. Hideous! Barbaric! I read this post at a very wrong time. Now I won't be able to sleep at all. How can a Human shred a fellow Human into 200 pieces? Its a human being for f***'s sake, not a Qurbani'r goru. I don't care what you tell me about Law & Order situation. This is simply sick. The perpetrator(s) of this murder should be identified, and brutally treated with extreme, long, and painful death. I say nail their nutsacks down to the floor, tie their hands from the back in public, and let the mob slap/kick/or whatever them for 4 hours, then slice their skin off and burn them to death. This is insanely inhuman.

[Edited on 6-4-2004 by Carte Blanche]

[Nasif]

Yes, I read the report few days ago. Its truely unbelieveable. And it wasn't done by one person, rather its a work of a group. Its just unbelieveable that group of human can cut another human into pieces. Either these are psycho nuts or "satan" incarnate!

[Edited on 6-4-2004 by nasif]

[rafiq]

April 12, 2004 / Vol. 163 No. 14


Time Link


State Of Disgrace
Bangladesh is reeling from violence, corruption and political turmoil.
Inside Asia's most dysfunctional country BY ARAVIND ADIGA | DHAKA The shopkeepers around him won't talk about the extortionists, pleading that they will be murdered if their own identities are revealed, but Siraj ul-Islam, a seller of saris in Dhaka's Kawran Bazaar, says he has nothing to lose by speaking to TIME. "Whether you publish our names or not, we are all dead men in this market," says the 54-year-old as he squats on a white platform in his little store. Kawran Bazaar, a sprawling complex of wholesale markets and retail shops near the heart of the capital, is a hunting ground for gun-wielding extortionists who don't hesitate to kill if they are refused their protection money. On Feb. 9 six suspected extortionists shot dead Mostafa Kamal, a travel agent who worked near Kawran Bazaar. Business has now dropped off sharply for Siraj and his neighbors, who are scared they could be next. "A man doesn't know if he'll make it home safely these days," says a nearby shopkeeper. Siraj, who fought against the Pakistanis in the 1971 war of liberation that created Bangladesh, summarizes the situation with a touch of bitter irony: "In 1971, the Pakistanis were terrified of us. But now we're the ones who are terrified inside our own country."
Bangladeshis, who have to cope with frequent cyclones from the Indian Ocean and regular outbursts of violence on the streets of their own cities, are a tough, stoic lot who don't frighten easily. But a wave of extortion, murder and kidnapping that is washing over the country of 140 million has many worried that the nation may be sliding into anarchy. The Bureau of Human Rights Bangladesh says 971 people have been killed since the start of the year. Says Badruddoza Chowdhury, former President of Bangladesh: "Never have crime and extortion taken place on such a big scale."
Nor in such a widespread manner. Nearly every rung of society is being terrorized. Truck drivers are assaulted on the roads; leading businessmen have been kidnapped for ransom; journalists have been tortured and murdered; and one of the nation's pre-eminent intellectuals, Humayun Azad, was almost killed in February by a gang of knife-wielding assailants. But the wake-up call for many Bangladeshis came last week, when the bodies of two cloth merchants were found beheaded and mutilated in a forest outside Dhaka.
Stunned by the discovery, many traders in the city closed their shops or held rallies to highlight the deepening sense of insecurity in the country's business community. "I'm just asking the government to allow me to die a natural death," says Aftab ul-Islam, president of Bangladesh's American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham).

Bangladesh's drift toward mayhem threatens to undo several decades of solid progress made by one of the world's poorest countries. Thanks to a slew of innovative ngos and a committed cadre of government social-welfare workers, the nation has achieved impressive gains in fighting poverty and slowing the growth of its population. A thriving textile-export industry fills American supermarkets with made-in-Bangladesh T shirts and sweaters, and many Bangladeshi millionaire textile exporters drive about the streets of Dhaka in new Mercedes-Benz. But for all its achievements, the country has also seemed like a political experiment designed to find out just how much corruption a modern nation can withstand before it ceases to function. "We are hurtling toward disaster," warns Qazi Faruque Ahmed, president of Proshika, a prominent Bangladeshi ngo that runs schools and voter-education programs.
For three years in a row, Transparency International (TI), a Berlin-based watchdog, has ranked Bangladesh as the country perceived to be the world's most venal. Corruption in Bangladesh operates with the sweep, intricacy and structured hierarchy of a medieval feudal system, replete with an English-language nomenclature in which "tolls," "fees," and "payments"
extorted from the poorest Bangladeshis are funneled up daily through an elaborate web of "collectors," "higher collectors" and intermediate barons into the ultimate hands of criminal "godfathers." Corruption starts on the streets. Every evening a "lineman" visits Dhaka's hawkers, making his way down a sidewalk ("a line") where a hundred or more hawkers squat and wait to pay him 50¢-$1.75 each, which might be up to half their day's profits. "It doesn't matter if you have had a good day or a bad day, or if your wife died or your son got sick," says one hawker. "You have to pay the lineman."
Simultaneously, other collectors are making their way through Dhaka's bazaars. In a wholesale vegetable market inside Kawran Bazaar, thugs belonging to a local Mafia collect daily payments from shopkeepers, which are calculated with impressive precision. A shopkeeper squatting on the pavement has his shop space divided into plots of 3 ft. by 3 ft., and is levied $3.50 daily for each plot. Those whose shops are beside the road, and closer to the trucks that download and pick up wholesale produce, have to pay two-and-a-half times more.
If Bangladeshis live in an overwhelmingly corrupt feudal state, then the knights errant of the system are widely believed to be the nation's policemen. According to a survey conducted by TI's Bangladesh branch, 84% of all respondents who had interacted with the police said they encountered corruption when dealing with them. When asked about this finding, Dhaka police commissioner Ashraful Huda doesn't deny that corruption exists in the force, but says, "We take severe punitive measures against any policeman found guilty of corruption." Though ordinary Bangladeshis have little faith in their police, they also believe the cops are only lackeys in a system in which the chief criminal beneficiaries are a handful of powerful gang lords with important political connections. Former President Chowdhury says some politicians have cultivated gangs of armed youths in order to intimidate their opponents. These gun-toting gangs, most observers believe, also work as extortionists-sometimes to collect cash for their political patrons, sometimes simply to make money for themselves. "There is a nexus of corruption, politics and violence," says Khan Sarwar Murshid, chairman of TI's Bangladesh branch.
Yet, even though Bangladeshis have long grumbled about the daily bribes they have to pay, an etiquette of corruption, honored by extortionists and victims alike, has made life bearable for many years. Mahafuzur Rahaman Bahar, a member of the Bangladesh Truck Drivers' Union, says drivers once operated according to a "token" scheme. By paying a fixed sum to the first extortionist they encountered, they received a colored-paper token imprinted with the sign of a tree or a cow, which guaranteed free passage to their destination. So long as corruption operated within the defined rules of a scheme, Bangladeshis got along with their lives.
But the system has now broken down. According to one of the country's leading businessmen, extortion "has become a daily event." Calls are regularly made to his factories by extortionists asking for money. He once refused to pay up. The result: his workers were attacked on their way to work, and the extortionists threatened to do damage to his factories. In the end, he closed one of them down. For truckers, the token scheme ceased to function about a year ago. The result is that on average a truck on its way from Dhaka to the port city of Chittagong, the country's most important commercial route, is stopped 8-12 times by extortionists. Trucks are frequently hijacked at night, and drivers who attempt to fight off the hijackers are sometimes shot. Bahar says 35 drivers were killed last year by
extortionists: "There's complete insecurity on the roads nowadays."
The violence is causing many foreign investors, who have eagerly eyed the country's oil and natural gas reserves, to rethink their Bangladesh strategy. Foreign direct investment in Bangladesh fell from $280 million in 2000 to $45 million in 2002, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. "Corruption and poor governance are causing negative growth in American investment in this country," says AmCham's Aftab.
Compounding the chaos is political paralysis. Many Bangladeshis say routine corruption morphed into rampant extortion after the 2001 parliamentary election, when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) came to power with the aid of fundamentalist Islamic allies. A wide cross-section of Bangladeshis, from prominent businessmen to shopkeepers to truck drivers, complains that the government has failed to crack down on lawlessness. "The general perception is that corruption has worsened under the present regime," says TI's Murshid. The rise in extortion and violence has led the opposition Awami League (AL) to organize repeated strikes to try to force the government to resign. But the strikes are hobbling the economy and contributing to the growing consensus that the authorities are not in full control-thus emboldening criminals even further, and making matters worse for ordinary citizens. "The two parties are bashing each other, and we are caught in between," says a shopkeeper in Dhaka.
The Home Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister did not respond to TIME's questions about the deterioration of law and order. Dhaka police commissioner Huda insists "there is no crisis." He charges that local media are sensationalizing the problem, and says official records indicate that the murder rate is actually declining in the capital. But on the streets of the city, that claim is met mostly with derision. So far, nine businessmen have been shot dead in broad daylight this year for refusing to pay up to extortionists, and many of Dhaka's shopkeepers now no longer rely on the police to protect them. A wholesaler of tomatoes in Kawran Bazaar has pooled his resources with his neighbors to hire 20 armed guards to ensure the extortionists don't target his part of the market. Outside Dhaka, the level of lawlessness has been equally bad, especially in Chittagong, where many businessmen have been targeted for kidnappings by extortionists. "We live with the constant threat of either being kidnapped for ransom or killed,"
says a businessman in Chittagong, who declines to be identified out of fear.

Making the violence more toxic is the spread of a brand of intolerant Islamic fundamentalism in a country with a history of religious tolerance.
Bangladesh's Hindus, who constitute about 10% of the population of the predominantly Muslim nation, say they are increasingly being intimidated by gangs of Islamic fundamentalists, who attack them in their homes, warn them to pack up and leave for India and, for good measure, extort ransom from them. "The condition of religious minorities has become terrible under the present government," says Subrata Chowdhury, a Dhaka-based Hindu human-rights lawyer. The brutal attack on well-known intellectual Azad, a moderate Muslim who is an outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism, has also led many in Bangladesh's intelligentsia to believe that they too are now being systematically targeted by Islamic radicals because they advocate secularism and tolerance. "How can you have intellectual freedom when you don't know whether you will come home safely in the evening?" asks Abul Barkat, an economist at Dhaka University.
Prominent Bangladeshi businessmen, who expect the security situation to deteriorate further and political agitation by the opposition to intensify, reckon there will be no significant investment in new factories for the next six to nine months. There could be worse ahead. Textiles account for 75% of Bangladesh's export value, but the start of 2005 will see the expiration of a special trade agreement that gives the country a guaranteed market for its garments in the U.S. Some experts fear that once the trade agreement ends, cheaper Chinese garments will eat away a large part of Bangladesh's export market and up to a third of Bangladesh's textile factories might have to shut down.
As the feeling of helplessness grows, some businessmen, recalling that extortion was less prevalent during the years of military rule, are nostalgic for the days when the army ran the country. Others are worried that a more serious threat than a military coup is the likelihood that Islamic fundamentalists, who captured only a minority of the vote in the general election, will take advantage of the rising sense of insecurity. "If [the BNP and the AL] fail to control lawlessness, then Islamists can present themselves as the only real alternative," warns Mubasshar Hussain, president of Bangladesh's Institute of Architects. Sari seller Siraj, like many other Bangladeshis, says he is adamantly opposed to the fundamentalists because he finds their brand of Islam too extreme. "I am a Muslim, but they are my enemies," he says. As he sees it, the government and the opposition must wake up to the impending crisis before it is exploited by Islamic radicals or by the military: "Corruption and violence have to end. Both political parties have to understand this, or there is no future for our children."

[oracle]

If [the BNP and the AL] fail to control lawlessness, then Islamists can present themselves as the only real alternative,"

Somehow, I doubt this is likely to happen.

Overall, this is the most depressing article I have read since Far Eastern Economic Reviews piece on fundamentalism in BD.
I like reading balanced articles and TIME, being a high profile magazine, should have at least added a few more sentences to highlight the initiative taken by the certain quarters to address these problems. I am alluding to the launch of the third force and increasing vocal opposition from the business community.
After all, there is always hope in darkness. Look at how Rwanda, after one of the worst genocide in history, is picking up the pieces.
I am not happy about this sort of journalism.

Anyway, thanks to Rafiq for posting it.

[Nasif]

Originally posted by oracle

Overall, this is the most depressing article I have read since Far Eastern Economic Reviews piece on fundamentalism in BD.
I like reading balanced articles and TIME, being a high profile magazine, should have at least added a few more sentences to highlight the initiative taken by the certain quarters to address these problems. I am alluding to the launch of the third force and increasing vocal opposition from the business community.
After all, there is always hope in darkness.

You won't get that much objectivity when the writer is Indian with "questionable" motive.

[Edited on 6-4-2004 by nasif]

[Zunaid]

Originally posted by nasif

You won't get that much objectivity when the writer is Indian with "questionable" motive.

[Edited on 6-4-2004 by nasif]

The above is true in most but importantly not all cases. Yes, the Islamist bogeyman is insidiuously and often blatantly inserted in many of the BBC and FEER write-ups.

I would not call this particular article to be particularly unfair for it is extremely accurate. While some termonology is rather hyperbolic - "Asia's failed state", none of the facts can be disputed. He told it like it is and it hurts and pains.

Everytime I call home to my family the sense of fear and dispair at the worsening situation is palpable over the phone line. And I hope this discussion does not degenerate into a political name-calling. It is irrelevant because all our politicos are to blame.

Inspite of all the gloom and doom there are silver linings. The article alluded to it too - the good that is being done by the various NGOs and concerned citizens.

I personally dispair as an armchair analyst - being an expatriate all I can do is spout off long articles and donate a few dollars to some worth causes. My power to effect a change is limited. As long as I have turned my back on the country and now live outside it, my views or comments will never be 100% legitimate or authentic to the people back home. I may care, and yes I do, but my voice is suspect.

The question we must ask is this:

How can we, the expatriates, help Bangladesh turn away from the road leading into the abyss?

- Z

[rafiq]

Good question, Zunaid. There's probably many things one can do, but none of them are easy when you live and work somewhere else.

One thing that would help is if people of Bangladeshi origin first put away their moronic differences created by alleged support for one political party in Bangladesh or the other, or one ideology vs another. It was cute while it was useful, but now it is beyond stupid, if I can be frank.

Another would be to learn to recognize issues for what they are, and accept feedback without trying to discredit the messenger. Culturally we have many hangups which prevent us from directly assessing problems and going about solving them. But then again this is not an MBA business case study.

[sage]

Shame on us! Such an article about our country! This is a disgrace!! The faintest dignity we had evaporated with this. As a nation we are a failure. We are heading toward rawand genocide. Shame!! Shame!! Shame!!

[say]

Govt terms Time report politically biased
BSS, Dhaka

Bangladesh yesterday described the Time magazine article titled "State of Disgrace" in its April 12 edition as deeply flawed, politically biased and sensational reporting.
"It generates skepticism because it lacks balance. It is poorly researched, uses corroborative sources that are obviously politically biased and leads one to pre-determined conclusions. It is a classic example of sensationalist reporting," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a rejoinder.


The rejoinder said, "Question arises as to why the author (Aravinda Adiga) so hurriedly penned this imbalance picture. The timing of the report, the sources quoted, its narrow focus and harsh conclusions point to a highly motivated report. It follows upon the heels of another slanted story the "Deadly Cargo" by Alex Perry which sought to smear Bangladesh as a radical Islamic fundamentalist State."

The rejoinder then went on to ask,"Is it an odd coincidence that both these times correspondents were based in New Delhi?"

The Time's article has done a major injustice to a country that has indeed been forging ahead as a functioning democracy despite huge constraints of poverty, overpopulation and all the ills that characterise underdevelopment, it continued.


The Foreign Ministry observed that core of the report hinges around three volatile elements tainted by the authors' conclusionsa law and order situation "sliding into anarchy," corruption operating within the "structured hierarchy of a medieval feudal system" and the spread of a brand of "intolerant Islamic fundamentalism."

[Tehsin]

All they care about is their own bhabmurti. Desh takey to dui dol miley chire kurey khacche, tokhon bhabmurtir chinta thakena ?

Time to likhbey, it's not like they made those things up. This is what's happening in the country. This things are happening under the close eyes of our political leaders. If they really want to stop people from writing about it, they should seriously consider putting a leash (sp) on their kuttas.

Awaiting that day .....

[say]

but this "BhabMurti" business is fairly new. An invention by this govt. I don't remember seeing this strategy being adopted by any previous govts. There were numerous 'negative' news articles about Bangladesh published in the past - but nothing like this happened back then.

Anytime you say something critical - you are to be branded as a "BhabMurti" destroyer - therefore harmful to the nation. How convenient is this use of 'National Image' to avoid responsibility, cover up wrong-doings and gain political mileage !! Come to think of it, they have even put people in jails in the name of this 'BhabMurti'.

[Edited on 14-4-2004 by say]

[Tehsin]

Say .. agree with you on that .. they just started ding this within the last 2/3 years.

[sage]

A prince stood on the balcony of his palace addressing a great multitude summond for the occasion and said. " Let me offer you and this whole fortunate country my congratulations upon the birth of a new prince who will carry the name of my noble family, and of whom you will be justly proud. He is the new bearer of a great and illustrious ancestry, and upon him depends the brilliant future of the realm. Sing and be merry!" The voices of the throngs , full of joy and thankfulness, flooded the sky with exhilarating song, welcoming the new tyrant who would affix the yoke of oppression to their necks by rulling the weak with bitter authority, and exploiting their bodies and killing their soul. For that destiny people where singing and drinking ecstatically to the health of the new Emir.

Another child entered life and that kingdom at the same time. While the crowds were glorifying the strong and belittling themselves by singing praise to a potential despot, and while the angels of heaven were weeping over the peoples weakness and servitude a sick woman was thinking. She lived in an old deserted hovel and, lying in her hard bed beside her newly-born infant wrapped with ragged swaddles, was starving to death. She was a penurious and miserable young wife neglected by humanity; her husband had fallen into the trap of death set by the prince's oppression, leaving a solitary woman to whom God had sent, that night, a tiny companion to prevent her from working and sustaining life.

As the mass dispersed and silence was restored to the vicinity, the wretched woman placed the infant on her lap and looked into his face and wept as if she were to baptize her with tears. And with a hunger-weakend voice she spoke to the child saying , "Why have you left the spiritual world and come to share with me the bitterness of earthly life? Why have you desserted the angels and firmament and come to this misereable land of humans,filled with agony, oppresion, and heartlessness? I have nothing to give you accept tears; will you be nourished on tears instead of milk? I have no silk clothes to put on you; will my naked shivering arms give you warmth? The little animals graze in the pasture and return safly to their shed; and the small birds pick the seeds and sleep placidly between the branches. But you my beloved , have naught save loving but destitute mother."

Then she took the infant to her withered breast and clasped her arms around him as if wanting to join the two bodies in one, as before. She lifted her burning eyes slowly toward heaven and cried, " God have mercy on my unfortunate countrymen!"

At that moment the clouds floated from the face of the moon, whose beams penetrated the transom of that poor home and fell upon two corpses.

** "The treasured writings of Kahlil Gibran" Author of the prophet