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Car requisitioning continues

No allowance, place to sleep for drivers of requisitioned vehicles

CITY CORRESPONDENT
Police continue requisitioning private vehicles ignoring a High Court order that asked the lawenforcers not to requisition any privately owned vehicle. But the police officers say they are requisitioning vehicles as per the law.
The requisitioning increases during hartals as the police department needs additional vehicles for the use of policemen patrolling the city.
The government brings a huge number of policemen to the capital from districts for emergency duty to avert any violence or untoward incident during the strikes and political programmes. Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has to arrange vehicles for them for patrolling purposes.
The police has recently requisitioned the microbus used by the security officials of former president Professor Badruddoza Chowdhury, alleged his son and Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh
leader, Mahi B Chowdhury.
It is also alleged that most of the traffic police officers do not have a clear idea on the court order. "We know that private microbuses cannot be requisitioned but all other private vehicles can be taken," said a police sergeant at Karwan Bazar while requisitioning a vehicle on February 5.
"The vehicles are requisitioned by the traffic department. Once a car is taken, it is not rerequisitioned in the next one month," the sergeant added.
An inspector of the traffic department however gave a totally different story. He said there is no order or law against car requisitioning. "We can take a private car anytime we want. There is no legal bar."
He said the existing law permits the police to take private vehicles for a maximum period of seven days. But owners of the requisitioned vehicles allege that the police often keep the vehicles for 10 days or more.
Habibul Ahmed, a Gulshan resident said: "Police just stopped my microbus all of a sudden while my family was travelling in it near Ramna. They took the papers and gave a slip saying that the vehicle was requisitioned for four days."
"After nine days the microbus was returned to me. And I was shocked to see the condition of my car. It needed servicing which cost a lot of money. Moreover, my driver was treated badly," he alleged.
Another driver, Jamal of Swamibagh, said: "My car was taken three days ago. The police never give us food or allowance which a driver on special duties are supposed to receive. And more importantly, I have to sleep inside the car."
A source at the traffic department said there is a shortage of patrol vans during hartal days. That is why they requisition private vehicles. They require 220 to 250 vehicles every day but can arrange hardly one-fourth of them.