Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Thursday | 16 January 2025 | Epaper

The ‘Queen bee’ that fell into its own ‘honey trap’

Published : Friday, 28 February, 2020 at 12:00 AM  Count : 822
Shahriar Feroze
PPPPP (Papaya prematurely poisons party and patrons)

Following the 'Queen bee' or 'Mafia queen' Papiya's arrest - however you brand her - I was teasingly admitting to my two editorial assistants that I wish I had met her earlier , and especially after coming to know that she also supplied 'foreign models' to an exclusive domestic clientele. I wonder what she could have done for a bachelor assistant editor. The truth, however, before I had fallen into her trap, she fell into it - a blessing in disguise indeed.

On a broader spectrum, the reportedly Jubo League leader Papiya's fall from her political grace once again reconfirms the dirty rotten political organism of our country. Third or fourth political tier leaders, such as arrested Samrat or Papiya are merely a tip of the iceberg of a corrupt political system that has been grooming criminals for serving not only political, but also immodest needs of certain powerful individuals. These questionable individuals widely ranges from politicians, businessmen, policy makers, bureaucrats to the top brass of law enforcement agencies and to god know what. That said - mama-san Papiya  had not barely ended in amassing envious amount of wealth but surely must have played foul with the wrong guy placed in the right place , and at the wrong time.

Running high class escort agencies in disguise of providing young girls or women to privileged customers is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh. Same stands in the case of running gambling dens and casinos. However, what needs to be understood young and brash AL leaders is - 'how' and 'who' can lead to your downfall despite your political prowess.
 
Papiya relives the 'Godfather line'

Analysing Papiya's 'tempting but dark potentials' her political godfathers' created her to meet their lustful needs. Papiya fulfilled their needs and accordingly drafted a counter-scheme to strengthen her position, blackmail her clientele being well aware of their terminal weaknesses. Failing to asses her actual strengths and weaknesses, she fell into her own honey trap.

Remember that famous line said by Marlon Brando in the movie Godfather--'Make him an offer he can't refuse', the 'offer' meaning 'Do as I say or I will kill you'. Papiya had succumbed to the offer as well but who was the godfather to have offered.

The biggest lesson here: While climbing through the political ladder, the lower tier AL leaders often becomes so brash and overconfident that they do not even hesitate to challenge the invisible authority of their makers. Driven by excessive lust for money and power they are blinded to such degree that they end up creating powerful enemies within. They also try to monopolise their respective businesses, be it gambling or running flesh-trade, they often refuses to share power and profits with their fellow political cronies. Subsequently, in the process they go against their community.

Bitter lessons for the ruling party

The camouflaged house of cards sheltering the self destructive leaders of AL's affiliated bodies now seems to be crumbling down unexpectedly with third, fourth or even the lowest level of its torchbearers.

I definitely salute the present government's drive against corruption while detaining the offenders. The point here, drug smuggling, gambling and pimping offences had been committed for quite too long. And the so-called detained Chhatra League and Jubo League affiliated leaders were placed in a safe and secured position for too long as well.
So what went wrong? How come the internal list of purge is getting bigger by the day?
The Queen bee's tale of rise and fall conveys an intimidating message. The spree of arrests of AL's affiliated body leaders' in recent times only hints at the domestic 'mafiasation'  of our decayed political system.   

A rotten political system

There are enough reasons to take Papiya's downfall as a personal or a collective form of inter - party vendetta. A number of names of prominent politicians had surfaced following the gambling kingpin Samrat's arrest last October.  However, Samrat's political benefactors and beneficiaries had endured little. The question now is about what would happen to her patrons and beneficiaries?  The RAB has been reportedly on a witch-hunt to track the queen bee's contacts.

In the process, several 'genies' are likely get out of the bottle but they will not come under the open air. Rather, they will get into a bigger and tightly sealed bottle.  
Perhaps only a few, who had brought down Papiya, will also go down with her.  New political patrons will groom a new Papiya. Whatever, there will be a new 'Queen bee' and she will have her specified timescale, until she falls into her personally placed honey trap laid for the other. AL high command is surely finding it difficult to deal with all the mini-Frankensteins it had created in the past decade. 

The internal cleansing drive in the name of curbing corruption, no matter how sincere it may be, continues to paint a negative image of the party in power.

For our domestic politics, the scenario is likely to get worse before it gets better.  
 The writer is assistant editor, News & Editorial, The Daily Observer




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