Editorial
Businessmen taking police to task
The need is serious, swift corrective action
The worries expressed by leading members of the business community about the wrongs committed by the police have long been the concern of the general public. Now that the business leaders have informed police officials at a meeting arranged by the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Thursday of such realities, one expects the authorities to take corrective action. By any measure, the criticism leveled at the police by the business leaders is severe. It is also unprecedented because rarely has as significant a body as the FBCCI come down so hard on the failings of the police and that too in the presence of the minister of state for home and senior police officials. Of course, the minister of state and police officers have tried reassuring the business community by suggesting that the police are not the enemies of the people. They are not, to be sure. But for the people to feel confident about getting the services they require from the police will call for a major change in attitude on the part of the police, all the way from the bottom to the highest perches of the organization.
The FBCCI leaders have unambiguously noted the involvement of policemen with crime, thus giving rise to issues of a nexus that can only undermine law and order. At the same time, accusations have been made of policemen indulging in bribery and snatching. There are police stations which allegedly link up with criminal gangs which regularly commandeer goods from covered vans and trucks on long haul routes, especially on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway. As if that were not enough, the revelation by a business leader that a sub-inspector has so much clout that he can go over the head of his departmental chief and have a minister of state cancel his transfer orders reveals a breakdown of discipline in the force. That brings to the fore the issue of political interference in police work. If policemen at the lower and mid levels can have direct access to politicians and because of such clout ignore their senior officers, it is a broad hint at the pressures which have kept the police department weakened from within.
There are clear lessons to be learnt from the FBCCI leaders' meeting with the police officials. In the first place, those leading the home ministry as well as those at the senior levels of the police administration must finally abjure platitudes and get down to the real job of purging the department of its corrupt elements. If the police commit crime or abet a commission of crime, all these pious expressions regarding rule of law are set at naught straightaway. In the second place, the degree to which the police can carry out their professional responsibilities in line with their job specifications depends on whether or not politicians in power are ready to stop interfering in the work of the police. As long as the political classes use the police to expand their own power base, the police department will remain in an emasculated state.
Finally, at a time when the country needs to expand its economic base through unfettered business activity, it is important that the police service be reformed with a view to reassuring the business community that it will not any more face the impediments it has so far. If businessmen are unhappy with the police, one expects swift remedial action on the part of the government.
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