At the time of launching the Police Week 2018, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina cited a Bangla proverb, "Baghe dharley ek gha, police dharley athar gha" (if tiger catches hold, it leaves one gash; if the police catch hold, there are 18 such gashes). A perception such as this presents a highly dangerous image of a law enforcement agency. Clearly, the premier was not joking, she just urged that the police proved the proverb wrong.
Now how can the police do this? The prime minister suggested that members of the police could bring about a change in the situation by working for the people. Through impartial performance of duty, the police can prove their indispensability. Their acceptance to the people is indicative of their high standard of service. So long, the police force has failed to live up to the expected level of service in a country that has gained its independence making enormous sacrifices.
Admittedly, the police could not shed its colonial legacy. This force had to be righteous and pro-people instead of acting as a stooge for the powerful, privileged and the moneyed people. Police-people relations do not enjoy the best of terms simply because of the mental orientation of both. The police have wrongly developed the mentality that they are there to rule not to serve the weak and the underprivileged. Most members of the law enforcement agency treat the poor and the weak indifferently and even at times disdainfully. But they are not unwilling to play at the hands of the privileged and the powerful.
Thus common people cannot be blamed for not taking the police into confidence. They are afraid of the men in uniform. In most cases they want to avoid the law enforcers because the pattern of law enforcement is not always straight and without personal interests. Sometimes some members of the police lose all scruples depending on the power they think they can wield in order to making the lives of some civilians a hell. At the time the prime minister was urging the police to be friendly to the people, an additional commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police was withdrawn from his workplace and attached to the police headquarters following media reports that he forcibly married a woman and tortured her. Again, in another such deplorable incident the entire team of a police camp in Khulna was closed. This time the action was taken against them on charge of eve-teasing a school girl on her way to school and back home leading to protest by her brother and the consequent torture of the man in the camp.
These are not just isolated cases. Some infamous incidents such as Yasmin and Seema rape and murder and shooting of Limon Hossain stand out to show that the police can turn nasty without provocation. What is even worse is the fact that when a member/members commit a crime, their colleagues or superiors come forward in support of the culprits. Unless, the media take a strong stand against the falsification, the poor and weak hardly stand a chance of disproving the police version of the occurrences. The innocent are most likely to be punished because of false institution of cases. Similarly, the police frame cases in many cases in such a way that the criminals get away with no punishment. This deliberate weak framing of cases is not for nothing. Fat amount of money gets exchanged in the process.
Lately, though, the police high-ups have awaken to the criminal involvement by members of the force. The attachment of the additional commissioner and the closure of an entire contingent of a police camp point to the fact that some initiatives are there to rectify the law enforcers. About 10,000 complaints were lodged against police officials of different tiers alone between 2012 and 2017. The police headquarters took action against 80,000 of them. Involvement of officials in various crimes is of particular concern here, because they are responsible for commanding their junior officers and others below the rank.
The number of police officers against whom action was taken continued to rise year-wise between 2013 and 2014. The trend has persisted and is likely to do so unless something radical is done about it. That indeed is alarming news. Even conviction for crime is not working as a deterrent to criminal involvement for the members of the police. Officers of different ranks are the key to maintaining service rules and laws. If they compromise on their judgment, the entire edifice of the police administration becomes vulnerable to all types of temptation.
There is no alternative to a thorough police reform. A former inspector general of police argued for such a reform in the interest of the administration. But then the enthusiasm died down. Indeed the police have their own problems. Better service rules, higher pay package, improved infrastructural facilities, modern implements and transports can change their mindset for the better. Now that educated young recruits are available, there is no reason why the mental orientation cannot be improved through motivation and training. The police force must be developed as an institution capable of taking future challenges.
