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Cops struggle with VIP protection

DMP forced to manage more vehicles, manpower as number of VIPs goes double

Kailash Sarkar
The police department during the rule of this caretaker government has been providing protection to twice the number of VIPs than it was during tire rule of the last elected government.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has to arrange for police pickup trucks for the VIPs' protection even though the VIPs' departments are supposed to provide the vehicles.
The DMP itself lacks pickup trucks and manpower. It has to provide these vehicles depriving law enforcers who need them for policing. Additional forces are also engaged in protecting theVIPs.
Sources said even though the cabinet is one-fourth the size of the previous alliance government, members of this cabinet are using twice the police protection.
DMP sources said a total of 17 police pickup trucks with around 140 police forces are engaged in
protecting the present 16-member cabinet.
Two pickup trucks with 16 policemen are used for the chief adviser while the 10 advisers and five special assistants to the chief adviser use one pickup truck each and 120 policemen in total, the sources said.
Only nine pickup trucks with around 70 policemen were used for protecting the 60-member cabinet of the last elected government. Three vehicles were used for the prime minister, one for the foreign minister, two for the opposition party leader and one for the state minister for home affairs.
The number of other VIPs has almost doubled during this caretakergovernment.
At present, the president uses two police pickup trucks, former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina use two vehicles each, the wife of the president uses one, wife of the chief adviser uses one, chief justice uses one, chief
election commissioner (CEC) uses one, two election commissioners use one each, the Army chief uses one, speaker of the parliament uses one and the deputy speaker uses one.
During the last government's rule, two police protection vehicles were allocated for the opposition leader in parliament, one for the speaker, one for the deputy speaker, one for the chief justice, one for the CEC, one for the chair-man of the Parliamentary Committee, one for the political adviser to the prime minister and one for Islami Oikya Jote leader Mufti Fazlul Huq Amini following threats made against him.
DMP sources said seven to eight policemen are engaged in a single VIP-protection vehicle.
Deputy Commissioner (DC-protection) Ahsan Habib Palash told The Daily Star, "As the authorities concerned do not arrange for the vehicles, the DMP has to provide them."
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DMP Commissioner Naim .Ahmed told The Daily Star. "As the DMP does not have sufficient number of vehicles, it has to requisition privatevehicles."
Sources said all the police stations and branches of the police department lack sufficient number of vehicles. Police do not conduct patrol duty on time and cannot rush to places timely due to this reason.
According to sources, the DMP inaugurated two new police stations on September 22 and the inauguration of six more police stations is in the pipeline. Ilie DMP was given only four pickup trucks for these stations.
AKM Hafiz Akhter. (DC-TYansport and Estate), told The Daily Star, "The two new police stations were given one new pickup truck each. They were also given one old pickup truck each, which were taken from other police stations."
According to sources, the DMP with around 23.000 policemen has only 540 vehicles and most of them are very old. Only 45 of these vehicles are new and the new ones are generally used for protecting VIPs.