Deterrent to arbitrary arrest and torture in remand

An 18-year-long legal battle has finally come to a happy culmination with the Supreme Court (SC) upholding the High Court (HC) verdict delivered on arrest on suspicion by the police and torture in remand. The HC ruling made it clear that the sections 54 and 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) allowing arrest and subsequent remand were against the fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed by the country's constitution. It also came up with 15 directives in order to ensure that legal provisions were not abused by law enforcers.
Delivered in 2003 on a writ petition submitted by rights organisations in 1998 following the death of a private university student named Shamim Reza Rubel in police custody, the verdict was however challenged at the SC by the government of that time. To the joy of all freedom-loving people, the Appellate Division of the SC has upheld the HC verdict. Now law enforcers in plain clothes have been barred from arresting anyone on suspicion. They have also been directed not to use torture as a means to obtaining confession from people held on detention.
Indeed, the HC's was a landmark verdict but now that the SC has endorsed it with minor changes, the final judgment has the potential to transform society and its relations with the operators of legal instruments. This judgment will definitely warrant changes in the CrPC. The interpretation of the legal provision in connection with arrest and eliciting confession has been different from what has been a legacy of the colonial regime. For the first time, the law is going to guarantee protection of the people's fundamental rights in the true sense of the term. The men in uniform will have to be precise in accusing someone of a definite crime before moving for the arrest.
When forced disappearances have become a very common incident, this legal weapon may be a deterrent to those. Sad and shocking news of such disappearances is so common that it is almost impossible to keep track of such incidents. The latest such news concerns the disappearances of nine people including three siblings from Faridpur upazila under Pabna in just a month. Newspapers carried the news of another such incident where parents appealed for returning their disappeared son.
Sure enough, impostor criminals posing as men in uniform have also been engaged in kidnapping people for ransom. If the rule of law prevails, such crimes can be brought to the minimum. But if accusing fingers are pointed at men in uniform themselves, the criminals only feel encouraged to go about their heinous business. It is not in case of arrests alone where the law enforcers take liberty of abusing power, they also do so in dealing with the civilians in their routine affairs. They must be ready to serve the people instead of displaying their common attitude to lord over the latter.
This SC judgment curtails the power of the men and women in uniform but it cannot change their mentality. For the majority of the members of the law enforcement agencies it will be very challenging to rise up to the task in a changed situation. Their orientation has to be quite different from what it was before.
Any civilised society could not be satisfied with less for protection of the liberty of its citizens. The derogatory epithet of 'police regime' has to give in to a caring dispensation that must acquire more sophisticated ways and means for making arrest and extracting confessional statements from the accused. Brutal torture applied for obtaining confessions has become obsolete. The interrogators, of necessity, have to be highly intelligent, patient and exceptionally smart in order to get the confession of crime out.
So it is almost a whole new territory of criminal business that the law enforcement agencies, particularly their investigators, will have to confront. In the changed circumstances, better it would be for them to take people into confidence so that they can deal with criminals more effectively. In that perspective, they will have to surrender their old ways and maintain unquestioned integrity to be equal to the challenge.
No, there is no possibility of loosening the grip if they tend to be soft and friendly with the people. In fact, it is the people's power that ultimately proves sovereign. So they must draw as much strength from it as they can in order to apply those against criminals. Their mutual cooperation indeed can root out crimes from society. If common people do not have to fear for their lives by taking a stand or standing witness against criminals, they will happily cooperate with the law enforcers.
To make the most of the verdict and the envisaged legal reform, the administration will have to come forward. Respect for law is an equation that must get established at all levels of society if its benefits have to be derived widely and reasonably.
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