Eminent citizens on Thursday said that democracy and political will would reduce the gap between the police and the people that was widened by using the force against students and the people during the student-led July uprising.
The police force should be free from politicisation, they said at a discussion titled 鈥楶eople鈥檚 police in citizens thoughts: security and bonding of trust鈥� at the Bangladesh Police Auditorium at Rajarbagh in the capital on the third day of the 4-day Police Week.
Presenting the keynote speech, writer and professor Salimullah Khan said, 鈥楾he police are not a part of state machinery but a part of the society. We have to go to the root of the gap between the police and the people, but it is a division between the people and the state. And the solution to the problem is democracy.鈥�
Salimullah slammed arrests of people by the police without warrant under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on mere suspicion in violation of Supreme Court directives.
He said that police must not be brought into confrontation with people.
Dhaka University peace and conflict studies associate professor Sazzad Siddiqui said that misuse of police by the state power must be stopped.
鈥業f the police work independently, the image of the force will increase,鈥� he said.
Former inspector general of police Nurul Huda posed a question how the police would work, had there been no political will of the people in power.
He said that chase and counter chase relation between the police and the people must be changed.
鈥楾he police need to realise that bringing out a procession for a just cause is not a criminal offence and please don鈥檛 do anything anymore when a police officer, while discovering the multiple-bullet-wound body of his son in a hospital morgue, would make a phone call to his senior, asking, 鈥渉ow many bullets one needs to kill a boy?鈥�,鈥� said 抖阴精品 editor Nurul Kabir.
Former IGP Abdul Qayyum said that he could not even imagine what had been happened between 2009 and 2024.
鈥楨arlier, there was no democracy, but we could provide service to the people. We did not become security guards like the past 15 years,鈥� he added.
In a democracy, people in power cannot do whatever they want, as they have to face people for votes in every five years.
Political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman, a member of former Electoral Reform Commission, said that the police had to struggle to disobey the unjust orders of the political parties in power.
In his welcome speech, inspector general of police Baharul Alam said that the history taught them that the people鈥檚 confidence was the power of the police, not arms.
Chaired by Special Branch chief Golam Rasul, also an additional inspector general of police, Public Service Commission member Chowdhury Saima Ferdous, Apex Footwear Limited managing director Syed Nasim Manzur, Centre for Policy Dialogue executive director Fahmida Khatun, lyricist Shahidullah Faraizee and musician Farzana Wahid Shayan, among others, shared their views on the police force.
This year鈥檚 four-day Police Week programme themed 鈥極ur police, our country: discrimination-free Bangladesh鈥� will end May 2.