The arrogance of the Osmans in Narayanganj has gone up a good number of notches since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina informed the nation, on the floor of the Jatiya Sangsad a couple or so weeks ago, that she would take upon herself the responsibility of looking after the Osman family.
The prime ministerial statement had ramifications that can clearly be imagined. An entire nation went into a state of disbelief, even shock. Where the people of Bangladesh had supposed that it was their welfare the prime minister would look into, the public declaration by the head of government that she was on the side of the Osmans made them wonder if such sentiments were actually coming from the chief of a party which historically had struggled for democratic causes in the country.
Since the prime ministerial pronouncement, nothing has been heard about the investigation into the Toki murder. The inquiry into the seven murders appears to have taken a back seat. The hapless mayor Selina Hayat Ivy has been pushed into a corner where Shamim Osman and the likes of him think she should stay.
For his part, the Awami League lawmaker, lately emboldened by the questionable election of his sibling Selim to the seat of his recently deceased brother Nasim, has engaged freely in a battle against the windmills. When the daily Prothom Alo carried a report of his intercepted telephonic conversation with a fugitive Nur Hossain, Shamim Osman called a press conference to clear his position. And yet he told the media people he had called that he had not read Prothom Alo, indeed he never reads Prothom Alo. Of course, he does not read the Prothom Alo, if he says so. If he does not, then why did he have that meeting with the media soon after the appearance of the report?
And now the MP has gone a step further. He believes that journalists are no better than dogs, that they write anything for money or when they are ordered to by the owners of the organisations they work for. His interaction with the media has consistently been a one-man show, with him doing the talking and taking no questions. Or, once a question has been placed before him and he has heard it, the answer which comes is a convoluted one, a clear attempt to evade the question.
He dissembles on television. As citizens, you ask: why is he being called to the channels every now and then? He says the prime minister, his "apa", is with him. Translate that into easy language: if Sheikh Hasina is for him, no one can be against him. That sends out a bad signal, not for Shamim Osman, but for the prime minister. Does she see the damage being done to her and to her government by the man whose family she has vowed to protect?
The decent SM Akram has been made to lose the by-election through his election agents being driven off their polling centres and through his supporters being intimidated into silence. Victory processions for Selim Osman were on the streets the minute polling ended. How did the Osmans know they had won the election even before the votes had been counted?
And did the Election Commission, its position in the public eye sliding rapidly, stop to think of ways of asserting itself and thereby clawing back to a semblance of respectability? The EC did nothing when Akram's people were run out of their polling stations. It did not warn the Osman followers against a violation of the rules. Would the EC have demonstrated similar pusillanimity had ATM Shamsul Huda and his team still been around?
Shamim Osman had the audacity to hurl abuse at a brave police officer who stood his ground on Election Day. ASP Mohammad Bashiruddin did not allow a union parishad chairman to take over a polling centre where he could stuff the ballot boxes with false votes for Selim Osman. Bashiruddin did what a dedicated, professional and patriotic police officer should do -- check criminality no matter how powerful the place of origin of such ugly manifestations of predatory behaviour.
Shamim Osman has not explained why he threatened this brave young man. Neither has the senior-most police official in Narayanganj done anything to defend his subordinate. The Election Commission, under whose jurisdiction ASP Bashiruddin was carrying out his responsibilities, has seen no reason to speak up for him. Fear is leading to a growth of warped personalities, to a republic of enforced silence.
What if now men infinitely more powerful than ASP Bashiruddin go all the way to punish him, even destroy his career and therefore his future? What if they give us a new fable, that he is a Jamaati at heart or a BNP man by conviction, despite his old affiliation with the Chhatra League, simply because he dared to deny a lawmaker and his minions access to wrongdoing?
These and similar worries eat into our consciousness day after day, night after night. This is not what we bargained for when we went to war for liberty forty three years ago.
Will the prime minister reassure us that she is with us, the people of this country? Will she revise her decision about the Osmans and enlighten us anew with the thought that democracy is what we will have in Bangladesh, that crime will be handled firmly irrespective of which individuals are involved in its commission, that Narayanganj and this country as a whole will one day return to Bangladesh's citizens?  
We wait for Toki's murderers to be brought to justice. We will celebrate ourselves when the perpetrators of the seven murders and their godfathers are hauled before the law.
We wait for times when our parliamentarians will make laws for our welfare, not break them for their self-aggrandisement, when true lawmakers will put lawbreakers out of circulation.