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JS body hails law and order improvement

Shakhawat Liton
A parliamentary body yesterday claimed that law and order is much better now than any other time in the past, though crime figures of 15 homicides and 350 other crimes on average a day suggest quite the contrary.
The reconstituted parliamentary standing committee on home ministry at a meeting al the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban expressed satisfaction with the overall law and order situation as the previous committee did. Yesterday’s meeting was held
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after a lapse of five months.
Going by the press reports and observations of human rights groups, present law and order scenario, however, does not provide grounds for the parliamentary body's complacency.
Newspaper reports and human rights campaigners state that, about 4, 500 people were killed in 2003, up from 4,000 a year ago.
Home ministry statistics show 3,503 people were killed in 2002 and 3,550 in 2003. From January to June this year, 350 people were killed on average a month across the country.
The statistics show a total of 1,27,616 crime incidents took place in 2002 and 1,25,639 in 2003. From January to June this year, average crime incidents numbered 10,500 a month.
Human rights groups, however, claim the figures to be much higher.
As many as eight major explosions killing 63 people took place during the rule of present alliance government.
The recent spate of bomb and grenade blasts has caused a panic among the population across the country.
At yesterday's meeting, members of the committee, all belonging to the BNP led ruling alliance, however, were content with different steps initiated by home ministry to curb crime, sources said.
A member of the committee blasted the media for blowing many incidents up out of proportion. He proposed that the media cell of the home ministry be strengthened to counter propaganda against the government, sources said.
In an attempt to rationalise their observation, committee Chairman Prof Shajahan Mia yesterday told The Daily Star that for a country with over 14 crore people, the crime rates were not so high.
"Current law and order is better than popular expectations. We hope the situation would be even better," the chairman claimed.
The parliamentary body had always expressed satisfaction with law and order. The then committee chairman Abdul Mannan, who later resigned from the ruling BNP, on several occasions, resolved that law and order was satisfactory. But before his resignation from the parliament, Abdul Mannan led standing committee asked the government to stop intimidating police administration into serving partisan interests.
After Mannan's resignation in March, the committee sat only once to scrutinise two bills in last April. On September 16, Shajahan Mia was appointed chairman of the committee. According to the rules of procedure of the Jatiya Sangsad, the committee should have held at least 14 meetings since its formation. But it held only nine meetings including yesterday's.
The parliamentary body at yesterday's meeting extended its support to the Rapid Action Battalion's (Rab) operations. Though as many as 32 people, mostly crime suspects, were killed reportedly in Rab custody attracting criticism from the press. Of the people killed in 'crossfire', four were among the top listed criminals.
The committee chairman, however, claimed that those who got killed were hardcore criminals and there is public support for these killings.
The committee asked the home ministry to take necessary security measures to ensure that the Durga Puja and Ramadan end peacefully.
Senior officials of the home ministry apprised the committee of different steps to maintain law and order.