Editorial
Resolving crime cases and protecting witnesses
Swift, effective action is the need
Much as we have been cheered by some momentous judicial moves on significant national issues in recent times, we remain concerned about the overall state of citizens' rights in the country. There are quite a few pointers to such a situation. One of them relates to the disclosure by the chairman of the Human Rights Commission that in 90 per cent of the cases they undertake, the police fail to get any conviction.
The HRC chief only confirms what we have always known --- that the methods the police apply investigation of cases are not only faulty but also often deliberate police efforts to divert the cases from the course that should be followed. And that happens because of the excesses the police commit in handling cases. By and large, a police investigation into criminal cases begins through an abuse of legal procedures by the law enforcers themselves.
Against such a background of legal complications faced by citizens, there comes news that the government is mulling the formulation of a witness protection law as a way of ensuring justice in cases of crime as also reassuring witnesses that a defence mechanism will be in place for them as security. Such a measure should have been thought of earlier. Even so, it is better late than never.
The story of the elderly woman who has now stopped seeking and expecting justice over the murder of her son in 1997 reveals the risks that witnesses to crime are exposed to in Bangladesh. No witness has ever turned up, for fear of retribution from the killers, to testify in a large number of such cases. There are hundreds of these cases all over the country. Sometimes witnesses are killed. A few have fled abroad. In the process, what happens is fundamentally a travesty of justice: a report points out that as many as 60 per cent of criminal cases remain unresolved owing to the unwillingness of witnesses, owing to fear, to appear in court. Of course, arrest warrants at times compel witnesses to testify, but that does not help them in saving themselves from the wrath of the accused and their accomplices. Observe the figures. Altogether 15,00,000 cases remain pending in court because of an absence of witnesses.
Such realities seriously underscore the need for relevant and effective laws to be in place. Those existing at present do not work chiefly because of police inefficiency or indifference or political pressure exercised on them. Any new law must therefore emphasise greater and absolutely professional performance on the part of the police in handling cases. Let the police be trained in this respect. As for those policemen whose record is bad, let them face disciplinary action. Apart from that, it is hugely important that not only an effective witness protection law be enacted, but measures must also be in place for those who harass or threaten witnesses and the families of victims of crime to be prosecuted in the harshest of ways.
The minister for law has promised action. Let him go into the job swiftly and purposefully.
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