Look around you. We’ve got monsters all around us

Halloween is here and we all are more or less aware of what it stands for: the supernatural, the end of the harvest season, trick-or-treating, dressing up in costumes, carving pumpkins and attraction for the haunted sites.

It's a mix of fun, scares and creativity, often with an emphasis on ghosts, witches and other spooky themes.

But beneath the costumes and candies lies a deeper, more unsettling truth.

The real horror isn't found in haunted houses or supernatural beings; it's in the darkness humans can unleash on each other.

If we shift from all that hypothesis and fantasy, is it really unknown to us who the real monsters are around us, out there in the real world?

World leaders? Family members? A friend? Your boss? Someone you once looked up to?

I'm sure all of you have come across an overwhelming amount of news of such incidents happening around you, in this life, as you live and breathe.

Look around you, we've got monsters all around us.

Let's start with the recent ferocious violence that took place in the country, the student movement.

At least 986 people were killed during the July-August uprising, with a staggering 78% (515 individuals) succumbing to police violence, according to a study report released by the Human Rights Support Society (HRSS).

Analysing the data on the forces or groups involved in the killings, the report revealed that information is available for 660 of the killings during the uprising.

Of these, 518 people (78%) were killed in police attacks, 52 by other law enforcement agencies, 52 by Awami League activists, and 38 in mob beatings.

Notice the percentage of police attacks here? It's the same force that is meant to protect and serve us, right? The numbers do not say so, neither do all the visual documents of the atrocities.

Hundreds and thousands of people dead, gone, taken away; just because some leaders cannot put aside their ego and come into agreements in a non-violent way.

They make one order, the next couple of hours takes away those pure warm lives in the blink of an eye.

Elsewhere, it's not any better.

Since 7 October 2023, Israel has declared a state of war, launching extensive military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel's military and intelligence operations have decapitated the leadership of both Hamas and Hezbollah, including Hezbollah leader and Iran ally, Hassan Nasrallah.

Yet Israel's wars show no signs of slowing. The conflict in Lebanon has dramatically escalated over the last five weeks, with most of the 2,800 deaths reported by the Lebanese health ministry for the past 12 months occurring in that period as reported by Reuters.

Rape cases is an everyday thing? Some known to us. Most undiscovered. Who could even imagine a nurse would end up getting sexually assaulted, raped and killed by strangulation moments after a dinner with colleagues and a 36-hour long shift in the hospital?

A 31-year-old trainee doctor's dead body, bearing multiple injuries, was found on August 9 in a government teaching hospital in Kolkata. A case that triggered weeks of nationwide protests. The parents of the victim were initially told "by hospital authorities that their daughter had committed suicide," lawyer and women's rights activist Vrinda Grover told Al Jazeera. But an autopsy confirmed that the victim was raped and killed.

The issue of domestic violence and torture brings out other monsters.

"There are five lakh child labourers and domestic workers in Bangladesh. Kalpana has been working for a family for five years, was tortured for four and a half years, but no one knew. We do not know how many more children are being tortured," said the Chairman of National Human Rights Commission Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmed who went to the burn and plastic surgery unit of Dhaka Medical to see Kalpana, a 13-year-old domestic worker who was severely tortured by residents of a house in Dhaka's Bashundhara residential area.

According to Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), 36 domestic workers have died across Bangladesh in the past three years, with 90% of these deaths resulting from torture.

Despite 103 documented torture cases, only 69 resulted in formal legal cases as reported by The Business Standard.

Over 10 years from 2013 to 2023, 450 domestic workers were tortured, and 200 cases of torture or unnatural deaths were filed.

Throughout history, atrocities like wars, genocide and oppression have shown that humanity is capable of unimaginable cruelty. Even in everyday life, greed, hatred and violence remind us that the worst monsters often wear human faces. Halloween's atmosphere can serve as a reminder of this shadow within us.

These are all real-life horrors that leave you traumatised, for life. Some make through, some don't. So, if you ask what scares me, I know my answer. Do you?