Give police the wherewithal

Conditions under which our crime investigators perform their duties are appalling and deplorable, to say the least. An investigative report in this paper reveals that an investigation officer (IO), usually of the rank of sub-inspector of police, gets a ridiculous sum of Tk. 3 as daily conveyance, in addition to Tk 10 for three meals a day for an accused in custody sticking to the archaic rate of a hoary past. Besides, an IO riding a government allotted motorcycle gets a daily quota of 1.7 litres of gasoline. Those having their own motorbikes are given a meagre monthly allowance of Tk. 100 only.
Imagine an SI's work load with all that logistic support: on an average he has about 15 cases in hand for investigation besides his regular chore of duties that runs into about 12 hours a day round the year. Currently, an IO has to prepare a case report that usually runs into 30 pages and that too in four copies before it is submitted to his superior officer for review and final clearance.
No wonder, IOs hardly investigate minor cases due to fund constraints, and where they carry out investigations at all these are riddled with flaws, only making for a weak prosecution and a poor conviction rate of only 8 to 10 percent.
We, therefore, fully endorse the proposal recently submitted by the police to the government seeking a budget of Tk. 31.84 crore for investigations covering cases of robbery, repression of women and children as well as those related to law and order.
Indeed proper investigation is the key to effective crime control. Surely under present circumstances where the police are working on an unworkably low budget it is not only the investigation that suffers but corruption is also spawned subverting the prosecution. This is tarnishing the image of our police force and undermining the effectiveness of law enforcement and justice system which can be largely avoided by giving the police the needed wherewithal.