Why Murders Becoming Commonplace Incidents?

A country may look unsafe when murders increase. But when murders look normal in a country, it really turns into a perilous place. That is perhaps the most disturbing message emerging from the latest crime statistics in Bangladesh. Between February and July this year, 1,805 people were murdered across the country, according to police headquarters data. In connection with these killings, 1,789 cases were registered. Put differently, Bangladesh recorded almost 10 murders every day during these six months. The number is not merely large. It is, in fact, moving in the wrong direction. During the comparable six-month period of the previous year, 1,585 murders were recorded. The latest figure is therefore 220 higher, representing an increase of nearly 14 per cent. An increase of this scale cannot reasonably be dismissed as an ordinary fluctuation in criminal activity. It raises a much larger question: what is happening to the capacity of the state to prevent violence before it becomes a crime statistic?

The monthly figures make the situation even more revealing. Police registered 250 murder cases in February, followed by 317 in March. The number fell to 288 in April before rising again to 310 in May and reaching 326 in June. July recorded another 298 cases. Thus, three of the six months crossed the 300 mark. The average was roughly 298 cases a month, meaning that the country was dealing with approximately one murder case for every day of the month, month after month.

Yet statistics alone cannot explain the nature of the crisis. Murder is often treated as an isolated criminal act, committed by one person against another because of a personal dispute. The emerging pattern suggests something more complicated. Political rivalry, local dominance, extortion, land disputes, family conflicts, drug-related violence, previous enmity, gang clashes and disputes over control of territory are repeatedly appearing behind killings. These are not entirely separate problems. In many cases, they overlap.

That overlap matters because it points towards a deeper institutional problem. A land dispute can become a political dispute when rival groups seek political protection. A personal feud can become deadly when illegal weapons are easily available. A local criminal can become more powerful when he develops connections with influential people. A neighbourhood dispute can turn into mob violence when people begin to believe that punishment can be delivered more quickly by a crowd than by a court.

This is why the murder figures should not be understood simply as a problem for the police. They are also a measure of how people perceive the authority of the state.
A functioning state is supposed to maintain a simple principle: violence belongs to neither the individual nor the crowd. If someone has a dispute over land, property, money, politics or personal honour, the dispute should ultimately be settled through institutions. When people instead resort to weapons, hired criminals, political muscle or mobs, the message is that formal institutions are either too weak, too slow or too distant to provide meaningful protection.

The geographical concentration of the problem makes this more concerning. Dhaka division recorded 435 murder cases between February and July, while Chittagong division recorded 390. Together, these two divisions accounted for 825 cases, or roughly 46 per cent of the 1,789 cases registered nationally during the period. Chittagong metropolitan area alone recorded 27 cases. The concentration does not mean that other parts of the country are safe. Rather, it indicates where economic competition, population density, political influence, land pressure, organised crime and local power struggles can intersect with particular intensity.

There is another number that deserves attention. Among the killings were six triple murders and four double murders. Such incidents are important not because they make the statistics more dramatic, but because they demonstrate how quickly ordinary conflicts can escalate. When several people can be killed in a single incident, the issue is no longer simply individual criminality. It raises questions about access to weapons, organised violence, intelligence failures and the ability of authorities to identify dangerous conflicts before they turn fatal.

The political transition following the change of government also makes the figures particularly significant. Any new government inherits the crime problems of the previous administration, but it is also judged by what happens under its watch. Political parties often promise to restore law and order after coming to power. That promise becomes meaningful only when ordinary citizens can see a reduction in violence, not merely hear stronger statements about it.

There is a particular danger when political competition becomes intertwined with criminal networks. Political parties do not necessarily create every criminal group, nor is every murder politically motivated. But when criminals believe that political connections can protect them from consequences, politics becomes an informal shield for criminality. Once that happens, policing becomes much more difficult. A police officer may arrest a suspect, but if the suspect has influential patrons, the institutional chain of accountability can weaken at every subsequent stage.

The problem is also larger than arrests. The police headquarters says patrols, intelligence surveillance and special operations are continuing to control crime. Such measures are necessary. But a country cannot arrest its way out of a structural crime problem. If the same disputes, rivalries and criminal networks repeatedly produce violence, enforcement after the murder is only part of the solution.

Bangladesh really needs to move from reactive policing towards genuinely preventive policing. Police intelligence should identify areas where land disputes, political rivalry, extortion networks, gang activity and illegal weapons are creating a high risk of violence. Local administration, political leaders and law enforcement agencies should work from the same information rather than operating in separate institutional compartments. Courts must also be able to process serious criminal cases efficiently. Otherwise, arrest becomes a temporary event rather than the beginning of a credible justice process.

The recovery of illegal firearms deserves particular urgency. It is difficult to imagine reducing serious violence while weapons remain available to criminals and political musclemen. Similarly, mob violence cannot be treated as a temporary social disturbance. When a crowd believes it has the right to punish someone without investigation or trial, the authority of the legal system is directly challenged.

Ultimately, the 1,805 murders recorded between February and July should not become just another six-month crime statistic. Each number represents a person, a family and a permanent loss. But collectively, the numbers tell us something beyond individual tragedies. They reveal the pressure being placed on Bangladesh's institutions by political conflict, criminal networks, social intolerance and weak deterrence.

The real test for the government is therefore not whether the police can explain each murder after it happens. It is whether the state can make murder increasingly difficult to commit in the first place.
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The writer teaches at IUBAT. 
He can be reached at [email protected]