Second line enforcers of the Bangladeshi regime

The Bangladeshi regime’s grassroots terror squad “BCL” gets far less attention than its counterparts like the “Basij” in Iran, the “War Veterans” in Zimbabwe, or the “ANCYL” of South Africa do, for reasons ranging from its 1950s beginning as a student organization to the fact that most foreign journalists covering Bangladesh are too lazy to delve deeper.  But the BCL is nothing if not the street enforcer of the Awami League regime: when even the police can find no legal avenue to visit state terror and the compliant judiciary has the occasional rare judge who sides with defendants in state sponsored prosecution, it is left up to the Awami goon squad BCL to get things taken care of ‘unofficially’.  It was localized armed units of the BCL who were used in the recently concluded ‘election’ to beat up almost every Opposition candidate, destroy their cars, and threaten their families so that only the Awami League nominees could ‘campaign’. Rare is it, if ever, for a criminal associated with BCL to be apprehended, let alone prosecuted for the perpetration of any and all crimes. Of course, at the country’ premier seat of learning—the University of Dhaka—the BCL runs the roost determining who gets admitted, who gets to stay in the dorms, and which faculty members get tenure https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2018/01/27/du-authorities-using-bcl-like-pakistan-rulers-used-nsf-cpb-chief-selim . Not surprisingly, most news outlets in Bangladesh are too afraid of having their own facilities and employees getting ‘visits’ from BCL and hence rarely report on the vigilante organization. It remains a mystery—except for the lack of interest shown by lazy Western journalists—as to why the BCL has not been branded a terror organization by the major democracies of the West.