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Beyond police’s technical empowerment

Muhammad Nurul Huda
MEDIA reports about the provision of high quality technical equipment for traffic and public order management of Dhaka Metropolitan Police are welcome. The issue that occupies concerned public mind is the quality of prompt and r sympathetic service from our police that should logically follow such addition of gadgets. One may perhaps not be unjustifiably apprehensive about the concomitant impact of such capital equipment as in the absence of a deeper look into the core organizational deficits not much can be expected in respect of
service delivery.
This writer wishes to take such a look and as such feels that every organisation, whether public or private, can only perform well if founded on valid organisational principles. In the case of the police force of Bangladesh, these principles were ruthlessly violated over the years, resulting in corrupt, inefficient and highly politicised police forces across the country. Increasingly, the police was rendered to act as agents of the political executive rather than as instruments of a democratic state. The selective application of law against opponents, whether political or personal, at the behest of persons of influence became the norm rather than
the exception. People perceived the police as agents of the party in power, not as members of an organisation publicly maintained to enforce rule of law.
As the ground conditions that made the 1861 Police Act arrangement expedient have long seized to exist, the police force of Bangladesh need to be urgently transformed from their colonial mould and organised on the basis of principles that govern standard, modern, contemporary police forces meant to police free societies, not natives. The key questions relevant are - what kind of organization will the police of Bangladesh need to meet the 21st century law and order challenges? Which model can be most efficient in bringing about a radical change in the existing intolerably high level of police-public estrangement? How can police be effectively brought under democratic control, yet ensuring its political neutrality?
As a first step, the responsibility of maintenance of law and order will need to rest unambiguously with the police. The police hierarchy will have to be made
responsible not merely for the organisation and the internal administration of the force, but also exclusively for all matters connected with maintenance of law and order. In short, policing operations will no longer have to be subjected to general control and direction from outside the police department.
Steps will also be required to rendering the police professionally competent, operationally neutral, functionally cohesive and organisationally responsible for all its actions which in turn will lead to efficient police operations, better decision-making, improved discipline of the force, and revamping of police accountability mechanisms. The role, duties and responsibilities of police will have to be orientated in a manner in which service function gets precedence and the prevention and detection of crime is seen to have a social purpose. The reform strategy will also seek to solicit voluntary support and co-operation of the people of Bangladesh.
Without enabling the police to function freely, justly and independently, there can
be neither justice nor an enviable order. Since the sole purpose of police is to enforce the laws of the land, without fear or favour to anybody, it is crucial to render it politically neutral. Such neutrality has been achieved in other countries by placing the police under apolitical control, thus creating a cushion between political expediency and law enforcement. In the absence of such a cushion, the persons of influence simply won't let police do its mandated duty.
As no police force can hope to perform its functions efficiently and effectively without enjoying a high degree of public support for the integrity of its operations, it is crucial to bring the police under a system of accountability that enjoys public confidence. Once the police are enjoined upon to perform a just and constructive role in the community, their work ethics would start undergoing a radical change. Being subject to law, they would strive to uphold and promote the cause of public interest and a jealous safeguarding of democratic norms based on rule of law and due process would be
their motto.
Can the police of Bangladesh be turned into a symbol of human security without organisationally gearing it towards that end? Is it possible to ensure operational neutrality of police? How can police be made effectively accountable? Can it be transformed into an instrument of law? What steps are needed to insulate the police from partisan political control? Is it possible that the empty political rhetoric of ensuring fair, just and humane dispensation at police stations becomes a reality? What should be done to raise the integrity levels of police? These are some of the critical questions that underpin the vexed police reform debate in Bangladesh.
If the police force of Bangladesh is to achieve ail these, its first order of business is the enactment of a new Police Act to replace the present archaic legislation enacted in 1861. As it is, the Act is weak in almost all the parameters that must govern democratic police legislation.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist of The Daily Star