Dhaka, Nov 7 : Bangladesh authorities need not endorse a deceased citizen's political affiliations, validate his personal history or settle historical controversies to ensure his peaceful burial, but must uphold the law impartially and without prejudice, a report has stated.
It noted that allowing political mobs to dictate funeral arrangements amounts to a failure of law enforcement and a surrender of public authority to street-level intimidation.
"The real-world consequences of this systemic decay were recently captured in a single, harrowing image: three women standing in darkness, digging a grave by the dim glow of their mobile phones. One handled the spade while the others cleared the displaced earth with their bare hands. They were not attempting to conceal a crime; they were simply trying to bury a family member in his ancestral home," according to a report in Bangladesh's newspaper Daily Waadaa.
"The deceased was Manik Pashari, a resident of Pirojpur who had previously testified before the International Crimes Tribunal against Delawar Hossain Sayeedi, a senior leader of Jamaat-e-Islami convicted of crimes against humanity committed during Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War," the report highlighted.
Citing local media reports, it said that political activists disrupted the funeral, questioned the deceased's credentials as a freedom fighter, and intimidated his family members.
The body reportedly remained inside an ambulance for several hours as the political confrontation continued. Eventually, his daughter and sisters were left to dig his grave themselves under the cover of darkness, Daily Waadaa mentioned.
"Local party representatives subsequently denied obstructing the burial, accusing the deceased of having delivered false testimony years earlier. Yet evaluating judicial credibility and weighing evidence is the exclusive duty of presiding judges, not local political cadres. If legitimate allegations of perjury existed, they belonged inside a courtroom, pursued through established procedural channels," the report mentioned.
"Neither historical grievance nor partisan disagreement grants private citizens or political mobs the legal authority to halt a funeral or demand political penance from a grieving household," it added.
The report described the incident as a deeply troubling failure of public authority, stressing that maintaining basic public order during a funeral is one of the fundamental responsibilities of local administration and law enforcement.
Highlighting how the disturbing image of three women digging earth in the dark poses Bangladesh with an elementary, inescapable test of governance, it said, "Can an ordinary citizen die without requiring permission or absolution from his political adversaries? Until the answer to that question is an unambiguous yes, the nation's grand declarations regarding institutional reform, democratic restoration, and the rule of law will remain fundamentally unfulfilled."
