The gruesome murder of Oishee’s parents in which Oishee was allegedly involved has shocked us all. It is not just another murder, nor even of the double murder kind of Shagar-Runi case but one that challenges every being as humans and parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, etc. It is a murder of taboo and is as shocking as an act of incest because this is a relationship that is never questioned. By being a party to their death, Oishee has broken that ultimate bond and has made every relationship that we hold dear fragile and vulnerable. Yet even before the shock fades, we need to ask if we are part of that very system and culture that turned her not only into a killer but also a victim.
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No normal person kills his/her parents or wives or children or any others. In case of parents or children this will happen only when the person is unhinged and it is almost certain that Oishee is mentally unwell. Recently however, such cases particularly killing of children by a parent is on the rise and this disturbing trend is noted everywhere. In almost every case, the killer is mentally sick, either in the short or long term. Suicide belongs to the same category and those who kill themselves are almost all even if temporarily, mentally unhinged. Social lives in turmoil are bringing mental crisis to the front often with devastating impact.
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In the case of Oishee this was aggravated by the drug issue. She was a Yaba addict and this must be a contributing factor to the act. However, almost all research shows that most addicts suffer from mental disorder and even habitual recreational users also suffer from personality disorder. In fact, drugs often are seen as a form of escape from mental agony for many and of course this leads to further agony and ultimately mental breakdown. It is particularly so in the case of children and during teenage years as this is when brain is being formed. Usage of drugs during then cause devastating and permanent effects. That is why, so many criminals are addicts or mental patients. It is not their personal loss of morality that causes them to act but that they lose their mental balance. Oishee seems to be coming from that twilight world where little matter except the next fix.
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Yet it is a girl we almost know — our own children or nieces and nephews and the unfortunate parents are in reality us. If it had happened to us we would be as stunned as we are now. Yet how much are we able to control the forces that has pushed the events forward? How much do we know about our own child and what they do during the years they grow up? It is not about where they study but what they do wherever they are and this is where things go out of hand. Oishee is an extreme case but there are thousands of suffering youngsters, many into drugs and other types of risky behaviours who have become great threats towards their own self and by extension, their family. An addict is a carrier of pain for himself/herself and for others. There are no happy addicts and in this culture even less so. And we really have done little about it under the illusion that it will never happen to us. It is this false sense of security that kills every time.
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Were they good parents as some have asked? Did they do enough to help their child? Could they have done more? We shall never really know but let’s say that the old fashioned secure and safe ways of raising a child is probably over. We live in a time when every child is under threat from the many social, political and lifestyle forces and the only safe child is the one who is strong enough to know what is right, safe and appropriate. The level of interaction children have with parents in our culture isn’t enough and parents need to learn to raise them during these years when they are most vulnerable. The way to deal with addict children is not to lock them up but get them treated and counselled. It is a problem that needs attention and neither denial nor ham handed pressure will work.
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What however is an apt indicator of our state of life is the way the police are behaving with Oishee, which is in clear violation of every rule and laws covering children. No matter what her crime, she is a child under law and must be treated according to the Children’s Act. Does that allow remand and being held without recourse to legal and social support? The abusive language used to describe her (by Monirul Islam, the joint commissioner of police who is also the official spokesperson of the case) — “next to Iblish” — is a reminder of the very negative forces that motivate so many of our behaviours. The kind of calls made for her blood shows that when we have declared someone as an enemy, we don’t care about their rights and this is not just about a 16-year-old but anyone else. Today, Oishee stands as the identified ‘iblish’ and so people are baying for her blood forgetting no matter what she has to be treated as a child. And nobody has asked about Shumi, the domestic aide, who too is a child and needs protection, no matter what her crime.
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It also brings up the issue of unsolved murders and that includes the Sagor-Runi murder case which till today remains wherever it was. Was the police able to act so prompt in the latest case because one of the murdered was a fellow police office or because nobody tried to shut down investigations? If catching murderers is a political matter, then some of the answers regarding what kind of a fetid society makes children killers will be understood.
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So many things have been put under the scanner by this act of violence. What must have begun as a mentally disturbed kid’s teenage angst was pushed beyond the age by drugs supplied by friends, supervised by a powerful drug mafia, protected by the very law and order agencies that are now trying to act as heroes for having arrested her and of course a political system that doesn’t punish the criminals. It seems it only organises encounters so that instead of strengthening the system, it creates more murderers.
Long before the knives slit the throats, long before drugs were mixed in the coffee to make sure they couldn’t resist, long before the Yaba tablets were sold, the teenage years were lost and destroyed, the gun that led to all the tragedies was already fired. Nobody had any chance.
The parents and the child were killed by the same enemy — ourselves and our refusal to act when we need to.
