Mass Campaign Week: Ensure high security
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) yesterday instructed the authorities of all key point installations (KPI), including residential hotels and reli-gious institutions, to beef up their security.
The DMP came up with the instruction yesterday -- the first day of “mass campaign week”.
Police will observe the week till May 4 to create awareness among people against militancy and terrorism, said DMP officials.
According to sources, police took the initiative of organising the “mass campaign awareness week” in the wake of terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka.
Speaking to The Daily Star, DMP’s Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman said, “It is not possible for police alone to deal with militancy, so we have taken the initiative to observe the mass campaign week to create awareness among people.”
On the first day of the week, a high official meeting was held at the DMP headquarters under the presidency of its commissioner Asaduz-zaman Miah, which was attended by the deputy commissioners of dif-ferent zones, detective branches and counterterrorism.
A high official of the DMP, present in the closed-door meeting, told The Daily Star that they discussed the increase of security at national mosques, churches and temples along with covering major areas with the use of Close Circuit Television Camera (CCTV) surveillance.
“We also asked to bring the cinema halls, theatres, five star residential hotels and airports under tougher surveillance,” the official said, re-questing anonymity.
Although, the KPI remains under tough security vigil, the officials have still instructed keeping a close eye on them, the official added.
Police already prepared a roster for bomb disposal units and first-response teams so that they can deal with any kind of situation at any time, sources in the meeting said.
Police further instructed bit-police officials to hold regular meetings in the community, especially in English medium schools, colleges, uni-versities and madrasas.
They were also asked to update the tenant databases after visiting dif-ferent houses randomly, sources added.
Following the meeting, all DMP crime divisions and the detective branch set up two-hour long check posts at all major points of the cap-ital from 2:00pm to 4:00pm yesterday.
“We will also conduct block raids and special drives as part of the check posts during the mass awareness week,” said a deputy com-missioner of DMP crime division.
Police also held a meeting with the owners of residential hotels and religious institutions in different areas of the capital.
In the meeting with hotel owners, police officials asked them to check every guest through metal detectors and archways very carefully. They were also asked to check every hotel staff members’ identity cards and addresses and were advised to take police help if needed, DMP officials said.
During the meeting with religious institutions’ authorities, police asked them to install security instruments at every entry point and check eve-ry devotee before entry, they added.
Earlier on April 24, Inspector General of Police Mohammad Javed Patwary directed all units of police to beef up security and intelligence surveillance to prevent any untoward incident ahead of the upcoming May Day, Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr.
Javed came up with the directive in a meeting through a video confer-ence with the chiefs of all police units and police high officials at the Police Headquarters.
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