Published: 12:53 AM, 22 June 2026
BCI President Terms Home Minister Complacent Over Mob Violence
Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, State Planning Minister Junaid Saki and another few reputed economists addressed a seminar on fiscal issues in the capital yesterday. -AA
Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) President Anwar Ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez has said that Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed's attitude shows he is totally complacent over the prevalence of mob violence across Bangladesh. Anwar Ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez made this denigrating comment on Sunday while addressing a seminar organized by Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in Dhaka city.
Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, former caretaker government's adviser Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman, CPD Distinguished Fellow Dr. Mustafizur Rahman, CPD Executive Director Dr. Fahmida Khatun and another few economists spoke on the occasion.
It goes without saying that erosion of public trust in Bangladesh's justice system is one of the causes of the surge in the dangerous vigilante culture known as "mob justice," which threatens the very core of social norms. Recently, a disturbing video went viral on social media, showing an alleged drug dealer being beaten by a local crowd of hundreds of people. To the passive scroller, it might look like a perfect punishment for the crime of drug business. But deep down, it is an unprecedented, terrifying symptom of a much broader institutional disease: the breakdown of public faith in the criminal justice system.
Mob violence has also claimed lives of journalists, political opponents, artistes, girls, elderly people and vandalized business enterprises, minorities' properties and religious establishments. Even gruesome occurrences like desecrating dead bodies and burning tombs have also happened at the hands of mob gangsters.
When ordinary citizens repeatedly see marked criminals roam around freely, a dangerous consensus forms. People stop believing that the courts will protect them when needed, so they take the law into their own hands. What we are witnessing across the country today is the terrifying rise of this culture of bypassing the due process of law to get "justice" in a shortcut way.
The spike in mob violence did not start out of nowhere. It emerged more prominently during the tenure of the interim government, when public institutions were weaker and law enforcement agencies were struggling to regain their footing due to their activities during the mass uprising. Amid this fragile transformation, citizens held onto the hope that a democratically elected government would restore law and order, rebuild the police force, and fix the judicial system. However, more than three months into the tenure of the BNP government, that hope is slowly turning into frustration day by day. Despite early promises from the cabinet to prioritize law and order, the administration has largely failed to curtail mob violence effectively, Anwar Ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez stated.
Discussants added at the seminar that the crowd's tendency to rationalize "instant justice" or punishment outside the formal justice system ultimately creates a dangerous culture of parallel justice. Afghanistan's experience, for example, shows us how the Taliban exploited the weakness, corruption, and inefficiency of state courts to establish their own Shariah-based courts at the local level, presenting them as mechanisms for resolving public disputes. Such alternative systems of justice may initially showcase speed or fairness, but in the long run they pose a serious threat to the government's legitimacy, the rule of law and human rights.
