Stop political use of police

Citing the attacks on innocent people in Kansat and Demra and journalists in Chittagong Stadium, they said police over the years have been failing to behave democratically in managing the crowds especially the agitation of the oppositions against the government.

The roundtable titled 'Political behaviour in crowd management' was jointly organised by rights watchdog Odhikar and the daily New Age in collaboration with the Academy for Education Development in Gulshan in the city.

AF Hassan Ariff, former attorney general, chaired the programme while the New Age Editor Nurul Kabir moderated it.

Odhikar's fact-finding officer Ilyus Rahman presented a keynote paper highlighting the law enforcers' mishandling of the crowd in different occasions.

He suggested setting up of a body to monitor overall police behaviour, orientation of police on human rights and amendment to relevant laws.

"Political use of police by parties in government must be stopped immediately to improve their crowd management capacities," he added.

Hassan Ariff suggested working out long-term steps 'since the problem is deep-rooted'.

"We cannot expect democratic attitude from police unless the government maintains democratic practice," said CPB President Manjurul Ahsan Khan.

Workers' Party President Rashed Khan Menon said police have lost tolerance and moved away from their principles.

Prof Mizanur Rahman of Dhaka University came down heavily on police for their 'brutal, violent and barbaric' attitudes towards the general people.

Stressing the need for an ombudsman for police, Prof Asif Nazrul termed police behaviour brutal but asked people of other sections to be law-abiding.

Mentioning overworking, poor salary structure, lack of logistics in investigation, great gap in police-people ratio, and lack of supervision and training as main problems, former IGP Ashraful Huda said this situation would not have arisen had the governments paid due attention to these problems."

"Spend necessary money for police, they'll give you the dividend," he said, adding that Rab has earned quick reputation as the government spent a lot of money for them.

Noting that police do not have modern training on crowd management, Maj Gen (Retd) Moinul Hosain Chowdhury said it would not be logical to expect peaceful attitude from them when political activists bring out processions with sticks and attack them.

Brac Director (HR) Afsan Chowdhury, Awami League leaders Akhtaruzzaman and Dr Dipu Moni, Dr CR Abrar, Dr Mushtaq Hossain, Farida Yeasmin of Blast and TIM Zahid Hossain of Action Aid also took part in the roundtable.