Limon, forgive us for our collective failure to save you.

I am angry with the way our state functionaries are torturing and terrorizing a 16-years old kid, Limon. I know some will throw pacifier ‘law is talking its own course’ at me. But I am not convinced that both direction and speed of the course are questionable in Limon’s case. Based on the electronic and print media reports, the whole saga goes as follows;
· A team of Rab-8, led by Deputy Additional Director Lutfor Rahman, shot him in the left leg while he was on his way to bring back a herd of cattle home on March 23 at Chhaturia village in Jhalakathi. The leg had to be amputated.

· Limon was not an enlisted terrorist, or a convicted fugitive, or charge-sheeted felon at that time of being shot. Apparently, RAB shot a good citizen of the country, for which nobody can ever recompense enough to him.

· Before Limon could overcome the horror induced in his life by one part of the state machinery, another part of the state machinery came heavily on him to add to his sufferings by framing some charges against him. The reason is unfathomable. Our friend police was very quick to submit the investigation report, so was the court to issue summon against him. He was eventually transferred to Jhalkathi in the middle of the night from a hospital in Dhaka where he was undergoing treatment just to heal his amputated leg.

· Senior Judicial Magistrate Nusrat Jahan on the same night gave the order to send Limon to jail after police produced him before her. What can be more horrifying in the life of this 16-year old boy? The horrified kid stop taking any meal in the jail because he thought by doing so he could avoid going to toilet which he cannot go alone by himself. At last, he was transferred to Barisal Hospital from Jhalkathi jail.

Shooting an unarmed 16-years old kid is a serious crime. RAB members are human being, and human can make mistake. I would assume that they made a mistake as I don’t have any reason at the moment to think otherwise. The state could simply say sorry to this 16-year old unarmed kid for causing the unthinkable horrors in his life, and provide him with the best medical service available in the country. But what did the state do instead? Our civil society and legal expert barristers and PhDs are just watching the wrongdoings of the state from distance.
Limon, forgive us for our collective failure to save you.