Hotel guests have to reply to at least 24 questions
The new rules for residential hotel boarders that will make it mandatory for them to provide personal information in a prescribed form may cause hassles for the boarders, say both lodgers and hoteliers in the city.
The hotel guests will have to provide the information, answering 24 questions in the form provided by the police department. The hotel management has also been asked to take photograph of every boarder and preserve it for a month for security reasons.
Law enforcement agencies said they are going to introduce the rules to curb increasing criminal incidents in the city. Many criminals specially robbers use hotel rooms as a base of their operations, police sources said.
"The recent robbery at the BRAC Bank is a good example. We have information that the robbers stayed at a hotel to make their plan, and left the hotel with looted goods after the robbery in the locker room of the bank," said a police officer.
“We found it difficult to identify the criminals as the information they provided to the hotel turned out to be false,” he said.
Once fully implemented, under the new rules the hotel guests will have to write down their name, parents' names, permanent address, mobile and land phone numbers, passport number, national identity card and voter identity card numbers (if any), driving licence and professional ID numbers (if any).
Hotel authorities have been instructed to verify whether the mobile and land phone number supplied by a boarder are genuine.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has already started to distribute these forms to the residential hotels so that police can get necessary details after an incident of crime in the hotels. The policy will soon be made mandatory for hoteliers, source said.
Hoteliers dubbed the crime busters' new move to collect personal information as a source of annoyance for both hotel employees and their guests.
"It is a good move for the community as a whole, but it is not without compromises," said Anup Hossain from Hotel Farmgate. "This sort of policy would be befitted for the numerous roadside and second-rate hotels. However, hotels that have a genuine appeal to a lot of people will be worse off from it," he said.
"Good hotels receive good customers -- people who are respected in society," said Shah Ali Khurram, a Pakistani businessman staying at Hotel Farmgate. "Having them to fill out forms and sit for photographs for security reasons will make them feel anything but good. It would be awkward and discomforting, at least for me."
"It would be almost as if I am being suspected as a criminal, which is not a very good feeling," he said.
"There are a lot of people who come from different regions of the country who do not have, or do not know most of the information required by the police. These people will have problems finding a good place to stay in the city," said Anup Hossain.
Danesh Mahmud from Hotel Green Palace International at Green Road believes that it would not be possible for a lot of hotels to comply with the new policy.
"Hotel employees have a lot of other duties like attending to the guests' needs and comforts. I do not see justification of this new policy as we already send a list of our daily guests and their information to the nearest police station," he said, adding that they have CCTV security cameras and strictest rules on receiving guests.
"This policy would be appropriate for the dodgy and shady hotels. The police conduct regular raids on those hotels, so the new policy would be an exaggeration," he said.
Conversely, some hailed the policy as a good way to monitor what is happening inside the hotels, and who is going in and out of them.
"I consider it as a good move," said a spokesperson from Hotel Superstar in Dhanmondi. "Yes, it may be a source of hassle for many in the beginning but in time it will become a regular practice and a lot of people will be thankful for it," he said.
"The hotels need to be closely monitored as there are a lot of unsocial activities going on there," said Mozammel Hossain, a businessman from Feni staying at Superstar Hotel.
"Many boarders do not provide genuine contact information to the hotel authorities. Now with the police involved, they would have to provide original information and it would be easier to track them down if required," he said.
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