When excesses by law enforcers heighten a crisis

The streets of the capital city and other rural places are again turning to theatre of violent outbursts, clashes and conflicts on different issues like power shortage, fertilizer crisis and spiraling price hike of essentials.

In curbing such protests and agitations, the law enforcement agency, eager to please their masters, sometimes carry things to excess and resort to brutal tortures on innocent persons.

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Shahin Sultansa Shanta, an innocent house wife in her thirties while on her way back home after leaving her son in a school in the Dhanmondi area became a victim of such unusual police atrocities on the Mirpur Road close to Road No. 27 crossing.

Primary investigations of a judicial enquiry commission as revealed in the press on April 4 last found evidence of beating up Shanta by the police on March 12 during a protest program by the 14-party opposition alliance.

In the aftermath of Shanta's filing a case against some police personnel under Women's and Children Repression Prevention Act with the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, the one member judicial commission said in the report, that the law enforcers taking her for a picket could arrest her and send her to the court but could not resort to any sort of torture.

Clearly, as people think, such brazen violations could not have taken place without the connivance of senior officers on duty at the torture site. What fuels suspicion is the manner in which key officials tried to stonewall a probe in the first place.

Street agitations and protest marches are not anything new in this country. People might recall the attack on the Janakantha office in 1999 by the present ruling party men then belonging to opposition that resulted in the property damage worth over Tk 50 lakh, as experts told at that time, as well as a bullet injury sustained by an engineer of the Janakantha press. No untoward incident of police excesses came to notice at that time possibly because of the fact the masters didn't want it that way.

The police in the country, presumably, have all manner of extracting confessions. But fastening a woman's belly with ropes for testing a woman's pregnancy because she told the perpetrators in that vein to escape torture, unheard of in medical science, took that ingenuity to new heights.

That should not be surprising because there is no dearth of people in the police service willing to junk the concept of human rights. Even a section of police officers hold the view that they should be empowered to punish the citizens and some of them believe in extorting confessions through torture.

The finest among them have confirmed some of the gravest allegations: that a lot of senior police officers are cynical of the rule of law, that they have little regard for the efficiency of the courts and Human Rights Commission, that they believe in greater freedom to resort to extra-legal methods. These hardliners are in a minority on a lot of issues raised in an unofficial survey. But experts point out that their capacity to do damage is incalculable because of the vital positions these officers occupy in the law enforcement machinery.

The most disturbing revelation is that there are officers who have misgivings about the concept of human rights or, for that matter, even democracy. The looming question is how does this happen? Whatever their training inputs, the organizational sub-culture takes over and whoever talks of human rights is considered soft or worse unpatriotic or disloyal to the government he is serving.

A good many of them believe that the police should silence those who oppose the government and that it's not practical to observe human rights in situations of protest, gheraos, agitations, and hartals. They also resent any legal regulation of law enforcement. As a natural corollary they want no legal accountability of their excesses.

More worrisome, the hard-liners are attuned to a mindset that defies any sort of rationality and human consideration and as an expression of allegiance to the party government they are serving are unfazed by the increasing frequency and variety of violence either in custody or on the streets.

A good many members, occupying even higher positions are opposed to the idea of initiating legal action against any member for custodial deaths. The disturbing incidents now rocking the country about deaths in police encounter reinforce people's suggestion that the National Police Service should do a psychological profile of the police officers or any other personnel held guilty by either probes or when such reports are made public through media to locate and cure sadistic tendencies and proclivity to violence.

The looming spectre of terrorism in the country is now an excuse to throw civil liberties to the winds. Many police officers, although they don't admit publicly, but believe that in hostile situations the police are justified in resorting to extra-legal methods or in denying fundamental rights to such groups or individuals.

Ironically true, sometimes these methods are resorted to overtly to either please the superiors or political masters in a bid to get quick promotions or rewarding postings. But as an expert in legal matters in the country says: "No policeman is obliged to carry out illegal orders, even if it comes from his superior."

But the stark fact is that standing up to the orders from the political masters isn't as easy as it sounds. Other than this large section of officers are disillusioned with the courts. They say that judicial delays are more to blame for human rights violations than their own excesses.

To be more precise, the problem is not lack of sensitivity among certain police personnel but also the circumstances that brutalize them. Evidently the law enforcement agency in the country has failed to work impartially in almost all bomb blast incidents and important political murder cases, namely Jamaluddin murder case in Chittagong and Kibria murder case at Habiganj in Sylhet, to name only a few among a staggering number of cases.

Those belonging to the RAB showed remarkable bravery, agility and neutrality in identifying the culprits and unearthing the skeleton of Jamaluddin, killed in 2004 after abduction. But by and large, police work in the country remains shoddy, amateur and biased.

Shockingly true, beginning with the Bangla Bhai case to all other sensitive political murder cases, police intervention and investigation have been thoroughly flawed and corrupt and the judicial system has been highly insensitive, prompting aggrieved citizens to jump into action.

While under trial prisoners await justice for years, those who seek justice from the court in personal disputes or against executive or police inaction or excesses, are finding the system twisted, narrowed, or full of sharks. Thanks to the inefficiency or capriciousness of the investigating agencies, only about five percent of the registered cases in any year lead to conviction. Sadly true, the police are much better at catching innocent citizens than terrorists and hardened criminals and their godfathers.

Undeniably true, the sector suffered from lack of confidence and credibility gap in the rank and file and in consequence few are willing to accept that the picture is as rosy as the alliance leaders paint it.

According to some senior retired bureaucrats, the drift had begun with the politicization of administrative machinery. Key bureaucratic posts went to officers who were loyal to the ruling alliance, with merit being given the go-by. Naturally, few are willing to be as daring as they were in the yester years. This is bound to happen when bureaucracy becomes corrupt, demoralized, and directionless.

In recent years, Bangladesh has not exactly been held up as a shining example of great governance. But even by its pathetic standards the last two years have been a nightmare. Paradoxically true, blind ambition of some high-ups in the higher echelon in the administration and political myopia of the alliance leaders have led the nation to the brink of chaos and left the people in total bewilderment.

When hardly any investigation was carried out and facts revealed after the arrest of Shaekh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai about their wheeling and dealing, their connection with terror financing, there came a startling revelation from some high-up in the police administration, brushing aside any link of the Jehadis with foreign mentors.

But the reports appearing in the press these days prove the opposite. Precisely true, high-ups in the administration, in their bid to demonstrate their loyalty to a party government, seem bent on proving that in Bangladesh that only untruth triumphs.

Md. Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.