Report on law and order situation in Bangladesh as portrayed in the print media.

Democracywatch is continuing these research and find that there is a great need to work towards combating human rights violation especially against women and children. We need your cooperation in this area.

Democracywatch has been observing law and order situation in the country since April, 2001. It focuses on the issues of human rights violation especially dowry cases, rape cases, acid throwing, harassment by police, and law and order situation that published in the daily news papers. It also watches the political clashes between the rival groups. Democracywatch scan six leading national dailies for this purpose. The dailies are The Daily Ittefaq, The Daily Inquilab, The Daily Star, Prothom Alo, Jugantor,and Janakhantha.

403 people killed in different incidents during May, 2003

A total of 403 people including 51 children were killed all over the country in different incidents during May, 2003.

The findings of the print Mediawatch in detail are as follows:

On various type of social violence i.e. robbery, quarrel for land-ownership, conflict for property-ownership, extortion, hijacking and clash between rival groups 137 people were killed where 18 were women.

Over the last month 85 rape cases were recorded. Among the cases 54 children were raped and 1 women and 1 child were killed after rape.

17 incidents of acid throwing were took place during the last month where 1 man was died and 15 women were injured.

33 kidnapping occurred and 15 people were missed in these incidents.

A total of 33 dowry cases were disclosed over the last one month and 28 women were killed out of these incidents.

6 hijacking and 2 incident of torture were took place by police. 1 person was also died in the police interrogation during the period.

With all of these, 234, a large number of people including 41 children and young (below 16 years of age) were murdered in different terrorist incidents all over the country during the last month.

A total number of 63 people were suicide throughout the country on which 23 were women, 22 were men, and 18 were children.