Comments on BBC News: Corruption still haunts Bangladesh

Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8106069.stm

None of these reports in the BBC or elsewhere should surprise anyone. Just look at the corruption perception index between 2004 and 2007 to understand what direction Bangladesh was heading.

2008: Ranked 147 out of 180
2007: Ranked 167 out of 179
2006: Ranked 156 out of 163
2005: Ranked 158 out of 158
2004: Ranked 145 out of 145

Does government have a role in this trend? Sure. Is it the only party to the vice? No. What we have is a vicious cycle in which corruption begets corruption and creates a society where you are either a giver or taker of bribe. Corruption has lost its color and badge in our society where being a sycophant is a sure way to become successful in this duniya, esp. for the mediocre and less bright ones.

This past week a marketing company that is interested about importing chemicals from the USA and Canada to Bangladesh contacted an expatriate. It was for a big supply requiring quite a bit of knowledge and correspondence with suppliers. When asked WIIFM, the owner said that the agent should try to get kickback from the supplier, i.e., can't expect any percentage from the buyer. He did not understand that what he proposed is illegal in this country.

Last week, we had a small gathering in my home. There, a family friend who was chairman in Engineering at Swarthmore College, PA - a liberal arts college - was sharing his sad experience about Bangladesh. He was also upset with some of our friends, even those living in our Philadelphia neighborhood, that were buying properties from known crooks in the housing sector, simply because the price was lower than the market price from a genuine developer. If that be the attitude of our educated people, I am afraid that we truly don't deserve any better. We seem to care more about our nafs, selfish desires than what is right and wrong.

Remember the criminal land-grabbing syndicate of Salauddin Qader Chowdhury that victimized my family back in 2005? Well, after they had demolished nine homes and evicted our 16 tenants and did so many other crimes, we were fortunate by the grace of the Almighty to recover our Khulshi properties. Within days, the honest police officer who had investigated our case was promptly transferred by Saqa to Mymensingh and was sued for interfering in our case by the crime syndicate. The same person is now accused of being a party to the 2004 arms-hauling crime in having helped the BNP-govt. Where is the truth in the midst of many such "politically-charged" cases? I simply don't know. My prayer is that let no innocent become a victim.

Last February while I was in Bangladesh, Saqa's crime syndicate bribed Chittagong city additional magistrate Asaduzzaman Khan to issue an arrest warrant against my 83 old father, without any police inquiry. Asaduzzaman took Tk. 40,000 bribe to issue the warrant against my dad, sister, two brothers-in-law that live in Chittagong. My father was shown to be a man of 52 and my sister of 38! The syndicate charged that my father tried to kill Saqa's front-man Jaker Hosain Chowdhury, a madrasa-daptari, much given to forgery of land-deeds and illegal grabbing under political patronage, by squeezing his balls (and what else is possible for an 83-old man!) on Feb. 15, 2009 in our premises! Our properties have been under 16-men Ansar guard for few months. Any person with an iota of intelligence could have seen the serious flaw with the accusation and would have thrown it on the face of the accuser, but not a corrupt magistrate. My father had to come to Dhaka with others, leaving my sick mother (a writer and retired college professor) behind, who needed constant care because of her serious sickness - cervical spondylolisthesis (she had her surgery yesterday). After months of moving between courts (city to HC), just last week, we got a quashment from the High Court. It ended up costing us close to a quarter million taka -- just on legal fees. For what? To fight a completely false case.

When I reflect upon the fact that we are by the grace of the Almighty financially well off and could handle such false cases, albeit under lots of physical, monetary and mental torture, what chances do our ordinary folks have in fighting against criminal syndicates? Nada, zero. Why such crimes when we are sure of our accountability before God for every act that we do on the Day of Judgment? Shame on us!

Is there a future for Bangladesh getting out of this mighty mess of immorality and corruption? I don't know but do feel that something ought to be done fast because if we don't, we all become a nation that breeds and sustains a system that is so bad that only those who are buried under the ground are better off than those living on it. But the living ones deserve better!

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