Police vigilance under a periscope

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It is a common sight in the city to see the men in blue uniform of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) stopping cars and other vehicles and searching them . But one is led to questioning the merit of this form of search when even a child probably understands that hardened criminals would not be so foolish as to move about openly in vehicles with their unauthorised arms or looted goods before the very nose of the police. Specially, after knowing about the checkpoints, they would not move so freely at all.
Even under normal conditions, the criminals adopt ingenious ways like using burqa clad females to strap arms and smuggled good on to their bodies for transporting from one place to another. Sometimes illegal arms and goods are put at the bottom of crates carrying fish, fruits and other perishables to avoid their detection. When the criminals are so clever, should not the police match their wits with appropriate innovative actions than going for virtually ineffectual operation of checkpoints on the roads.
Reports appeared in the press to the effect that police sometime ago entered residential premises without observing the due formalities of carrying search warrants and with complete disregard for privacy of people. In some of these raids, they allegedly seized kitchen knives and hatchets for mowing grass as lethal weapons. A vernacular paper reported recently prominently that police even forced housewives with their schoolgoing children to disembark from rickshaws and empty the contents of their vanity bags to satisfy them that these contained nothing dangerous.
Surely, such behaviour are considered as discourteous harassment and bullying of law abiding citizens. Many people were arrested from the road before a political event last year and except a few all had to be released as no evidence of criminality could be associated with them. In many such cases, the near and dear ones of the arrested, fearing their physical tortures at police station, greased the palms of policemen to secure their earliest release.
No wonder that some press reports described the indiscriminate arrest of people a lucrative exercise on the part of the police. According to press reports , one arrested person in connection with a criminal case died some months ago from alleged police torture while in custody at a police station in Narayanganj. The dead person's mother told newsmen that her son was killed as she could not give Taka 50,000.00 to the officer in charge of that police station which was demanded for the release of her son.
All of these charges and more make a mockery of police vigilance and call for immediate intervention from the highest level to put an end to the persecution of innocent people at the hands of the police. If the police really wish to catch criminals and contain crimes, then obviously they ought to direct their energies expressly against them and not employ the same against harmless people.
The countering of crimes and catching of criminals in the present context call for innovative police operations relying on the detective branch of the police to know about the whereabouts of the criminals to be able to go after them. The police and their detective branch must move unconventionally and in the areas where criminals are expected to tread. Only then, their drive against criminals would look properly targeted and could lead to notable success.
Zahid Hossain
Uttara, Dhaka