Enhance amenities for police reform

The caretaker government has already allocated Taka 360 lac for the police service, and this is enormously an appreciable idea. It is a matter of satisfaction for us that the government has been earnestly working for reform in the police service, which will lastingly help to improve the overall law and order situation in the country.
It is a habit in our country to characterise the police as being ruined, politicised and negligent, and brutal to the people. The police have been used as a political bludgeon throughout the British rule, the Pakistani regime, and all the political governments in independent Bangladesh. Additionally, they have been neglected in terms of receiving their due facilities during the course of time. We have to bear in mind that they have power; they are working hard, almost 20 hours a day, but sadly getting meager remuneration. So this fissure is making them besmirched. Let's imagine a deprived person with a revolver (muscle). If he is starving but has no cash to purchase food, he will go to a food shop and ask for it, but if that fails then he will use force to get the food. This may be applicable for the police service.
Now, someone can say that a policeman gets remuneration according to the scale. But here a question may arise; whether we should expect better service from a policeman who works 20 hours per day, or from another employee who works only, or at best, 8 hours a day? Being acquainted with several police officers, and observing personally, I have got a clear idea about their agony. They are not merely receiving poor salary and serving additional time but, sometimes, they also have to bear some operating costs of cases from their own pockets.
Since if they have to carry on with their occupation they have to run the cases assigned to them. As a result, for the sake of investigation, they have to question witnesses, go to the investigation place burning their own fuel, make arrangement for autopsy, and even buy paper for writing. There are many more expenses which come from the policemen's pockets. Now if we want accountable, caring and proper duty from them, then it would be doing injustice to them if they are not given enough facilities.
I consider the difference between the spending on a case and the meager amount against the costs as the main reason for the police becoming spoiled. It might be that they make additional money from the public. But if the government allocates enough money for these functions I believe that bribery in the police service will decrease significantly. Every year, we spend Taka thousand million in ADP, but I would like to say let us reform the police service by allocating enough money. I bet the entire country will certainly observe the result. The amount of money that the government has already allocated for police reform is not sufficient. As we come to know from the media reports, the police authority asked for some facilities from the government, which is completely justified.
I would not like to say that a huge number of members in the police service are ruined, but would like to mention that the majority of the members of police service lead an inhuman life. Some leading dailies of our country have recently published a number of investigative reports on the anguish of the police, and I watched one of those stories on a television channel, and was dumbfounded. The food they were taking was just pitiable. A police constable said: "We are not able to eat this rice for the bad odour, and want to give our surplus food to beggars but they even reject it." Some policemen have to sleep by rotation as there are not enough beds for them.
Now visualise a policeman, after having a harsh 20 hours duty in the streets controlling the violence, starting work the next day without having a proper sleep. How could we expect better performance from them? I would like to salute those policemen who have been serving us in spite of these pitiable inconveniences. I am confident that we are getting people to join the police service due to the high unemployment. Before passing any remarks about the police we have to think of their situation, but many of us are actually unaware of their condition. Out of my own interest, I have been monitoring the living styles of some of my friends who are in police service. A number of them told me that they would like to quit the occupation, but they have no other alternative.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has started a project, and I as a citizen of the country respectfully urge the present government to implement the recommendations of this project completely. The government can take an experimental scheme in this regard, and if they find that the service by the police improves after the increase in amenities then they can permanently implement those recommendations. The police are intimately connected with the general people, and this step can benefit the people of our country. I can state that without increasing the facilities police reform will be limited to words and pages only.

Delwar Hossain Arif is an Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Chittagong.