We hope such incident will not be repeated
We are shocked at the incident that took place in Natore’s Lalpur upazila recently where a Union Parishad chairman assaulted a farmer for calling the national hotline number for getting relief. Reportedly, the farmer of Angaripara village was going through a hard time as he couldn’t earn a living during the countrywide shutdown and called 333 hoping for some help. This apparently angered the UP chairman who called him to the union parishad office, took him to a room and beat him up. It makes absolutely no sense as to why a UP chairman would attack a poor man for asking for relief when the government has given directives to all the local government bodies to help the vulnerable people across the country during this time of a national crisis.
Providing rice at Tk 10 per kg and launching a national hotline, 333, for providing humanitarian and food assistance to the needy are two important measures taken by the government during this countrywide shutdown due to the Covid-19 outbreak. However, every day we are coming across reports of misappropriation of relief rice by public officials and ruling party men. And then this incident of a farmer being assaulted by a UP chairman. We hope that this is just an isolated incident and will not be repeated in future.
Since police have already arrested the UP chairman in question, we now hope that he will be punished according to our law. The arrest of this man should serve as an example to others that such behaviour by public representatives will not be tolerated by the government. We hope our public officials understand how important it is for them to be receptive, sensitive, and do whatever they can to help people in the time of this grave national crisis.
