The brutal and depraved cases of rape and murder of four young children has demoralised well-meaning citizens of the country, who are left ruing a sharp decline in moral standards, yet at a loss to explain how this came about.

It is prudent to consider at the off - is this decline real? Or is it the perception fuelled by our cognitive bias, our nostalgia for a romanticised past? Here, some statistical mooring may help to guide us. Even if it's true that we should always be careful not to reduce victims to numbers, it is also true that they don't lie either.

According to the country's leading human rights organisation, Ain o Salish Kendra, at least 118 children have been victims of rape so far in 2026. ASK additionally report that 14 of those children were killed, constituting rape and murder - which carries the death penalty in Bangladesh. If we look back on even just the last decade, that is actually far below the worst years for this most heinous of crimes, that happen to be 2019 and 2020 - in both years the number went above 50.

These statistics are more than just numbers; they represent shattered lives, profound trauma for survivors, and unimaginable grief for families and communities.

The evil that lurked in the perpetrators' minds in the horrific incident involving 7-year-old Ramisa, that has disturbed the nation most in this latest spate, is beyond most people's capabilities to fathom. Yet human beings are indeed as capable of pushing the limits of sadism and bestial behaviour, as they are of preternatural brilliance and athleticism. We should never be too surprised by anything we hear. In this case, a husband and wife duo's depraved sense of desire and gratification has jolted the nation, such that the home minister was forced to take a question on whether the government would consider a demand among certain sections of the public for the main accused to be executed in public.

In this emotionally-charged moment, the home minister's pushback against that suggestion has made him the target of much trolling - not just online but also when he accompanied the prime minister on a visit to Ramisa's home, which itself was a commendable gesture on the part of Tarique Rahman.

There, we saw the prime minister try to console the aggrieved, as well as shattered parents of Ramisa, by saying they must stay strong for the elder sister she left behind. He also told them his government's first priority will be to ensure swift and demonstrable justice in the case. Which, according to the law, would amount to hanging the deviant couple. Indeed, delivering on this demand by moving the case as quickly as possible through the judiciary, including the Appellate Division, may be the best option at hand for the government, to set an example and deliver a message to any would-be rapists and murderers of children going forward.

Whether that will solve the problem of moral decay is a different matter. But delivering justice is as good a place as any, to try and start the process of reversing this disturbing and debilitating spiral.