Homicides are on the rise across Bangladesh, according to a report carried in a Bangla contemporary. Indeed, murders and violent crimes seem to have become a routine affair. The killing of all four members of a family in Rangpur city confirms that life is vulnerable even at home. So pervasive is the insecurity of life that a person, any person, cannot be blamed if s/he is assailed by a foreboding anticipation that when his or her turn is next. Dark psychology is at work. Social bond has broken down and suspicion of each other spreads its roots deeper.
Muggers are more aggressive now than before with no hesitation to use lethal weapons and mobs lynch victims on suspicion of petty crimes to death. Then there are political murders to settle old scores. Even incidents of son killing father or mother are often reported. But it is more baffling to know that a 30-year-old father drowned his 7-year-old son and four-year-old daughter in separate locations of wetland along the Derai-Sylhet road in Sunamganj. According to his confession, the police recovered the partially decomposed bodies of the children from the spots he disclosed.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, social psychology was at its most generous with empathy flowing freely for the needy and the distressed. That was a time when the most criminally bent soul underwent a radical change for the better. People were ready to stand by fellow human beings no matter if they were familiar or unfamiliar. Even traders who are known for taking advantage of the disadvantage of situations to maximise their profits reined in their avarice. But at a time things were looking up, the Russia-Ukraine war started to bring the close human relations back to square one. The post-pandemic world got on course of disintegration of values and moral decay.
Countries like Bangladesh, heavily dependent as they are on imported gas and oil, stared in the face of an economic downturn. In a situation like this, businesspeople and the privileged pursued the course of preserving or furthering their self-interests to the neglect of the rest of society. Social discrimination started widening and low-income people had their back to the wall. The snowballing impact of US-Israel invasion of Iran has proved to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Holding society together became a difficult proposition.
Thus came the July uprising with workers, unemployed or retrenched multitudes joining the protest rallies initiated by students in the hope that their interests would be advanced and protected under a discrimination-free arrangement of governance. But nothing of this order happened. Disillusioned, the marginal and uncared for segment of society has become deeply frustrated. Confronting overwhelming odds, some have joined criminal gangs or made crimes their source of income and a few have opted for suicides. In the five years between 2020 and 2025, as many as 76,361 people committed suicide. On an average more than 15,000 people have terminated their lives in a year during the period under scrutiny. In the five years from 2016 to 2020, the number of suicide cases ranged between 10,000 and 14,000.
There is just a thin line between suicide and murder. In some of the cases, murder and suicide get intermingled. In a few cases, helpless single mothers or couples, driven by desperation, killed their children before bringing an end to their own lives or trying to do so. The Sunamganj case is an aberration where the father confessed to the drowning of his son and daughter and indicated that financial crisis and family feuds led him to commit the criminal act.
The caretaker government of Muhammad Yunus did not bother about the anarchy that followed the fall of Sheikh Hasina. At times, the impression was that his government even encouraged the bedlam. The country is yet to terminate the legacy and bury the unruly mentality fostered during his rule. Even Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed, who himself was a victim of state-sponsored abduction, has failed to set a most positive tone to the law and order. So, both homicide and suicide are on a higher trajectory. This does not bode well for society.
Both problems issue from a single source---poverty and the failure to maintain family. In case of youth suicide, once again frustration and low self esteem arising out of no prospect of landing a job or finding a source of income otherwise seem to be the compelling reason. Social contract between the government and the governance has snapped to the utter frustration of the poor and marginal people. The July uprising gave them a hope of restoring a social balance only to fade in the distant horizon. Once again, the privileged coterie had its own interests served well to the utter neglect of the ordinary masses.
Without changing the system in favour of social and economic justice for all including those living at the bottom threshold, this society cannot stabilise and prosper. The discriminatory arrangement of governance will take a heavy toll of life and property. At the same time, it will continue to create condition for more uprisings and even a revolution. In the intervening period, there will be more hardships and struggles. Social peace and stability will remain elusive until a benevolent government opts for a comprehensive social reform or in its absence an all pervasive revolution sweeps through to establish an equalitarian society.
