JS body suggests separate battalion to secure MP hostels, residences
A separate battalion has to be constituted to ensure security of lawmakers' residential buildings, their offices, and the premises of Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, a parliamentary committee recommended yesterday.
The committee members said illegal staying of "unwanted" people, mostly followers of respective MPs and the party activists in the MP hostels and buildings, are causing unwanted occurrences and frequent thefts there.
The recommendation came following the lawmakers' repeated outcry both inside and outside parliament on hazards they have been facing due to lack of security.
The committee in its meeting at the JS building proposed that more than a 100 members from different law enforcement agencies will be brought on deputation to man the battalion while a deputy commissioner will be at the helm of it.
On July 14, 2010, Speaker Abdul Hamid and Chief Whip Abdus Shahid said in parliament that some ministers and lawmakers illegally allow their aides to spend nights in the MP hostel, hampering security and causing embarrassing situations for the lawmakers who live at the hostel with families.
Addressing the Speaker, a Jatiya Party MP Hafizuddin Ahmed on that day had said, “I am seeking your protection for our security. I am suffering from insecurity".
There are five high-rises at Manik Mia Avenue and at Nakhalpara each for MPs to reside. Besides, MPs have separate offices at the MP hostels and at parliament members club.
Last year the JS committee identified over 55 flats in different buildings at Manik Mia Avenue and Nakhalpara where outsiders were living instead of the respective MPs.
Letters were issued to them asking not to allow outsiders for living in buildings and hostels for MPs. But no one has so far paid any heed to it.
Talking to The Daily Star, ABM Ashraf Uddin Nizan, a member of the committee, yesterday said, “Lawmakers irrespective of their party affiliation have been raising the issue for the last one year. But the situation has not changed. Outsiders still are living in MP hostel and their residences causing different unwanted incidents”.
Family members living with the lawmaker in the parliament residences often face "embarrassing situation" due to the outsiders who are either distant relatives or party activists of the respective MPs, some members of the committee told the meeting.
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