The campus police should be composed of educated and enthusiastic people, capable of responding to emergency situations that need specialized skills. They will provide security to campus properties and will prevent intruders. They will maintain working relations with other law enforcing agencies, and will develop an advisory system designed to send an alert to the university authority about possible terrorist attacks.***

THE government is contemplating formation of campus police to provide a safe and secure campus environment in the country's public universities, as the recent violence at Dhaka University (DU) spread like wild fire to other campuses and triggered an unfortunate episode. The government closed down all universities and colleges in the major cities and imposed curfew to crush the violence.

The TV channels of the country telecast the details of the strong police actions to tame the angry students, who were beaten up mercilessly. The capacity for rational handling of such a situation was found severely missing among the

police. The police personnel (majority of them are barely educated) are not aware of DU students' role in our national movements. They treat the varsity students as knaves, as they sorely lack the sense to differentiate.

The battle between the agitated students and police in a very sensitive place like DU campus sent a strong and clear message to the government once again, that handling of the student community calls for care and compassion, and patience and prudence, not force. Coercive approaches always proved counterproductive, particularly when students' sentiments are concerned.

Police action in the female students' halls of DU at the dead hours of night in 2002 created a strong public resentment across the coun-

try that compelled the government to remove the Vice Chancellor, Dr. Anwarullah Chowdhury, to calm down the situation. Many senior teachers of DU were beaten up severely by the police as they protested such a police action in the female students' halls.

Another riotous situation occurred in the DU campus in May 2005, following the tragic death of a DU student under the wheels of a bus at Shahabagh crossing. Police beat up mercilessly the mourning students entering the campus.

Throughout the 86 years of its existence, DU has expanded enormously and enhanced its educational legacy and student population, which has now grown to thirty thousand. The Proctorial System of

DU, consisting of one proctor and eight asstt. proctors (all are teachers except one), is mainly responsible for providing safety and security in the campus.

The proctors, who are given ample power in writing but nothing in practice, are totally incompetent for meeting the real need of this present time.

The relationship between the students and law enforcers has deteriorated significantly after the recent incident at DU. Not only the students and teachers of the universities, the conscious citizens of the country also think that law enforcers should not be allowed to enter the university campuses for handling students' agitation. Such a situation should be handled with velvet gloves, not with bullets and batons.

The idea for forming campus police to meet the safety and security requirements of the DU campus community was also discussed in the senate meetings in the past. But no concrete steps were taken so far to shape up such police considering its sensitivity.

To provide a safe, secure and orderly campus environment conducive to the successful pursuit of educational opportunities and accomplishments, the public universities of the country need police capable of establishing a professional and trusting relationship with the students, teachers, and other staff.

DU, the highest seat of learning of the country, practically became crippled during the tenure of the immediate past government. The academic activities of the DU had been tottering for the last several years due to frequent strikes by the student organizations, political violence, hartals, and work abstention by the teachers, resulting in enormous session jams leading to two to five years delay in academic schedules.

DU remained closed for 22 months four and a quarter years, from July

2000 to September 2004. Apart from the annual scheduled vacations of some 90 days, the university lost over 75 days a year on an average due to strikes and other impediments during the aforesaid period.

The campus police, either armed special police or unarmed security squad, should be quite different from the conventional police forces and must be under full control and management of university authority. They must not also be recruited and trained like the Railway Police (GRP).

The campus police must possess some qualities of head and heart, and should be featured by some special characteristics that suit the sentiments of the students.

A special team comprising of army, police, and university officers should be formed for recruitment of campus police personnel. They should be given proper training by instructors from the Police Department and other law enforcement and intelligent agencies, making them skilful in all security tactics.

The campus police should be composed of educated and enthusiastic people, capable of responding to emergency situations that need

specialized skills. They will provide security to campus properties and will prevent intruders.

They will maintain working relations with other law enforcing agencies, and will develop an advisory system designed to send an alert to the university authority about possible terrorist attacks. But the campus police will, in no way, seek any sort of assistance from other law enforcing agencies without permission from the university authority.

There are many universities across the world which have their own police to provide a safe and secure campus.

The Howard University in Washington DC has a very inventive Campus Police Deprtment, which works cooperatively with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police and other District of Columbia and federal government agencies. The campus police officers, who have been commissioned or licensed, maintain extremely close working relations with the Metropolitan Police Department.

The Howard University campus police exercise full police powers to arrest the offenders. They take search warrants from the court and

assist the prosecution process.

The Campus Police Department of Howard University is a composite of the five following sections. These are Field Service Bureau, Physical Security Bureau, Personnel Development and Training Section, Investigation Section and Operation Section.

The California State University (USA) Police Department provides the university community with a safe and secure environment in which to learn, live, work and grow. The University Police Department personnel are committed to a service philosophy of "Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving."

The University Police Officers are sworn police officers as established by Section 830.2(c) of the California Penal Code. They have the same responsibilities and powers of arrest as other peace officers in the State of California.

The public universities of Bangladesh may take the help of these universities while planning formation of their own police forces.

A. N. M. Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star.