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Must we beseech FBI-Scotland Yard ad infinitum?

Mahammad Nurul Huda
THE government has sought the assistance of external agencies in properly and expeditiously investigating the dastardly depredations of the Pilkhana tragedy. Not many people have reservations about such a request for help; but there is at least one prominent public figure who entertains doubts about the use of foreign help in such matters. He is former president Hossain Mohammad Ershad, who has said that foreign investigators who do not know our language cannot make much headway
The language deficiency cited does not merit serious attention as the foreign investigators are expected primarily to render technical assistance in areas that our outfits are not experienced in. The issue that perhaps demands urgent attention of our political and executive functionaries nov is the neglect in brushing-up our investigative skills over the preceding years.
The sad reality is that every time a heinous crime invoking loss of lives occurs, we look or external assistance without realising how galling such a scenario is to the national honour. Delving into rhe legality of the role of
external agencies in our criminal investigation does not serve much purpose, but what must concern us are the factors that have brought us to such a pretty pass.
Our citizens need to know why our investigating outfits have to live with the double stigma of being partisan and inefficient. One may ask why our national level political leaders openly impute motives on the part of our investigators and cast doubt on their integrity. Who has failed whom? Have political leaders encouraged and abetted the malfeasance of the investigators?
Viewed from another angle, are we victims of misplaced priorities because of the follies of myopic policymakers and malevolent professionals? In misplaced exuberance, have we extolled the benefits of the so-called crossfire to the detriment of cultivating a scientific culture in law enforcement? These are queries that need to be pondered in serious earnest.
Now may be the time when we must know why investigative efficiency of the police has deteriorated so sharply over the years, and whether such efficiency can be regained in isolation without setting the expected organisational goal of the police. It may also be appropriate to know the pattern of resource allocation for increasing the professional compe-
tence of investigative outfits. We may have to know if there is a lack of proper emphasis in fixing priorities and deciding the core functions of the police in a pluralist society like ours.
We have to appreciate that the cumulative neglect towards increasing investigative efficiency over the last decade has brought us to a situation where we are uncomfortably witnessing external agencies dealing with matters about which we may at best seek expert opinion only. Purchasing lethal weapons may serve inadequately explained goals but investigation has to be scientific and level-headed to prove equal to the stress following an incident, and credible enough to withstand the subsequent rigorous scrutiny in a court of law.
Experienced observers are of the view that the investigating agencies shall continue to remain inactive and incapacitated until the political authorities decide to treat criminal violence as a purely criminal phenomenon and desist from interfering in the investigative process. Immediate actions to secure the place of occurrence for preservation of physical evidence will not follow if the investigators remain in a state of bewilderment following the enormity of one such incident.
Institution capacity building, insofar as it relates to modern scientific investigation, is not on anybody's priority list. There is, therefore, no wonder that after each incident there is a demand for impartial investigation by a foreign or international agency on account of
alleged lack of investigative acumen, in addition to other political and psychological factors. The question is: where do we go from this impasse?
If we are not willing to forsake one of the primary state functions we cannot lose any further time in modernising our investigative outfits. Must we not realise that calling foreign investigation agencies to conduct activities on our soil amounts to a disgraceful admission of our operational and administrative inefficiency? What we need to plug the gaps in this regard is some modest investment on capital machineries and training.
However, equipping the investigators will not serve the purpose if investigation does not become the unaffected and unfettered jurisdiction of the investigators. The inaction and the resultant incapacity characterising each incident of serious violence hangs heavy on the national scene, and is giving rise to mounting international concern. The need, therefore, is to empower the investigators through lawful directives and ensure the growth of a healthy political climate for peaceful resolution.
The question of the sincerity of the political authority is very significant. The required sincerity can only be proved through concrete actions like proper registration of the case, energising of the intelligence network for proper apprehension, collection of material, physical and circumstantial evidence, effective laboratory testing and, finally, expeditious investigation. All these can be made possible if
the political executives show adequate determination and agree to go by the book
The field executives related to criminal investigation have die ability and competence to withstand the pressures of sustained investigation and present a legally tenable charge-sheet. The rest is a matter for the law courts to decide. After all, the booking of perpetrators is possible by working through the existing criminal intelligence network If, in the past, we had been able to detect clueless murder cases there is no reason to think that the same cannot be done now.
In fact, public functionaries, including the investigators, must be helped and facilitated to so conduct themselves that the difference between government and the state interests are not diluted, thereby upholding the hallowed ethos of our public service. If this can be done at the earliest we may be able to halt the pernicious slide towards an environment of all-pervasive lack of trust and confidence in the ability and impartiality of our investigative apparatus.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist of The Daily Star.