Needed, a modern police force
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
A mob allegedly beat a Rapid Action Battalion personnel to death for demanding money from drug peddlers at Ratanpur under Madhabpur upazila in Habiganj recently, local people told newspapers. Abul Quashem from Chokoria upazila under Cox's Bazaar district, who joined the Rab months ago, according to Rab-9 officials, had died of a heart attack.
The police everywhere have the responsibility to maintain the law and keep the order. In banana republics and totalitarian states, they go about their job without caring for the law. In democracies, the police entrusted with the safety of people are also answerable for what they do. Bangladesh is clearly neither a banana republic nor a state under an iron fist.
And yet, recently a college student was beaten up by police. Our men in 'khaki' behave as if they are an occupation force.
One doesn't really need to read the recently released report by Human Rights Watch on police brutality in Bangladesh to know about the culture of men in uniform against citizens. The watchdogs, however, do not document the arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture as well as custodial deaths. This needs to be broken, not only for the sake of our citizenry at large but also because the reputation of Bangladesh as a democracy is at stake.
Police reforms are required. The police force works under incredibly stressful conditions with little professional emoluments. That cannot be the reason not to look at how to use the law against lawbreakers. There can be no justification to the statutory power to bully the citizens.
Bangladesh needs modern police force for dealing with mobs, petty thieves or hardened criminals. The stick cannot serve the purpose more than the law.
Gopal Sengupta
Canada
E- mail: _gopalsengupta@aol.com_
The police everywhere have the responsibility to maintain the law and keep the order. In banana republics and totalitarian states, they go about their job without caring for the law. In democracies, the police entrusted with the safety of people are also answerable for what they do. Bangladesh is clearly neither a banana republic nor a state under an iron fist.
And yet, recently a college student was beaten up by police. Our men in 'khaki' behave as if they are an occupation force.
One doesn't really need to read the recently released report by Human Rights Watch on police brutality in Bangladesh to know about the culture of men in uniform against citizens. The watchdogs, however, do not document the arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture as well as custodial deaths. This needs to be broken, not only for the sake of our citizenry at large but also because the reputation of Bangladesh as a democracy is at stake.
Police reforms are required. The police force works under incredibly stressful conditions with little professional emoluments. That cannot be the reason not to look at how to use the law against lawbreakers. There can be no justification to the statutory power to bully the citizens.
Bangladesh needs modern police force for dealing with mobs, petty thieves or hardened criminals. The stick cannot serve the purpose more than the law.
Gopal Sengupta
Canada
E- mail: _gopalsengupta@aol.com_