Dhaka city police fight for accommodation

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Police in the capital city are suffering from insufficient sleeping arrangements and unhygienic conditions in their barracks following years of inadequate funding and neglect.
"After ensuring others' safety throughout the day we have to fight for a place to sleep. How can we behave well with people the next day?" said a police constable from Rajarbagh Police Line, who asked not to be named, reports bdnews24.com.
A room at Rajarbagh Police Line can accommodate 20 beds, although 50 to 60 beds are crammed into every room with no lockers for clothing.
Extra beds are even crammed onto the staircases and balconies of the six-storey buildings, making a death trap in the event of a fire.
The conditions of the toilets at the police line are also dangerously unhygienic with no running water most of the day.
"A battle starts early in the morning to take a shower. It takes at least six months to get a bulb after applying for one, so we end up buying them," said another police personnel.
Deputy Commissioner (DC) of police in the allotment department at Rajarbagh Police Line Ahsan Habib Polash told the news agency that the problems were enormous.
"The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has 23,600 members of different ranks, but Rajarbagh Police Line can accommodate only one or two per cent of them. Many stay outside the barracks as tenants," Polash pointed out.
"The salary of a sub-inspector is not sufficient to meet a family's needs; it is not even enough pay for its food. Adequate living quarters remain a long way off," the DC said.
DMP Commissioner Naim Ahmed said: "A 10-storey building is under construction at Rajarbagh Police Line. We have also planned another two six-storey buildings on the east side of the mosque at the police line."
Additional Inspector General (AIG) of police Naba Bikram Kishore Tripura told the news agency: "We are working on reforming the police. This is a mammoth task."
"Food or accommodation is not the main issue. We are trying to bring infrastructural change to the whole police battalion. We are also trying to bring about a change in ideology."