Had the rule of law prevailed in the country along with minimum ethical values in society, it would be the criminals who would cower in shame. But when the accused killers are the ones threatening the families of the victims, then there is no hope for justice. This is exactly what is happening in the case of the murders of Madaripur’s Mustafapur Bahumkhi School students Sumaiya Akther and Happy Akhter.

According to Saturday’s Prothom Alo, associates of the accused threatened the families of Sumaiya Akhter and Happy Akhter, ordering them to leave the area. How do they have the courage to do so? And why has the chairman of the school management committee and local Awami League leader Abdur Rab sided with the accused, rather than stand by the side of the victims? He even obstructed the teachers from forming a human chain in protest of the killing of the schoolgirls. The teachers had to just submit a memo to the district administration as an expression of their protest.

Sumaiya’s father said, a young man of the area, Rakib, would harass his daughter. He complained to the local UP member but to no avail. The miscreants then took Sumaiya and her classmate Happy to a house and killed them. The parents couldn’t save their girls. Now they are not even being able to seek justice for the murder of their daughters. What sort of society are we living in?

It is the government who is to provide security to the families of the deceases. Legal action must be taken against whosoever are threatening the families. It is the law enforcing agencies who will decide who is to be arrested and who is to be released. This is not for the local Awami League leader to decide. The miscreants involved in the murders who have not be caught yet, must be arrested immediately. 

Let there be a speedy trial of the criminals by arresting them immediately and filing charges against them. The killers must be tried.