Editorial
Giving the police the wherewithal
A step in the right direction
The government's decision to make an allocation of Tk. 18 crore in the 2007-08 fiscal year as funds for the police to bear the cost of investigations certainly goes some way toward meeting their requirement. Alongside this, the provision of 30 per cent of their basic salary as allowances for traffic policemen clearly argues the case for greater efficiency on their part. All of this goes towards fulfillment of a long-felt need on the part of the police department.
As the record shows so amply, all cases of investigation by the police, especially matters relating to a perpetration of criminality, were in the past hamstrung by a lack of funds. It was not surprising to hear of policemen paying from their own pockets or even sometimes resorting to dubious means of coming by money to pursue cases. Such a situation will hopefully now come to an end and make the work of the police that much easier.
There can be no question that police investigations often involve a long, elaborate process of action. Cash-strapped investigations cannot be expected to yield positive results. In investigations of criminal cases, locating witnesses and getting them to cooperate, nabbing suspects and bringing them within the ambit of the law, recovering bodies and having them undergo autopsies are some of the steps the police are required to take. All of these are not only difficult but also monetarily exacting tasks. Additionally, when all such work earlier had to be done by the police without any financial back-up from the department or the government, there was a natural inclination on the part of investigating policemen to slacken their activities. In the process, it was the people directly affected by crime who suffered. One other drawback of investigations -- and that again owing largely to a lack of adequate funds -- has been a prevalence of bias and a lack of propriety involved in them. These drawbacks have all too often weakened the prosecution of crime.
The move to provide funds for police investigations into crime as also allowances for traffic policemen from now on can, therefore, be looked upon as steps in the right direction. On the one hand, the police will now be expected to move with alacrity in discharging their responsibilities. On the other, as a result of such quick movement, the police will be able to find clues more effectively than they have been able to until now. A provision of investigation-related funds should enable the police to move more speedily into preserving and collecting evidence of crime. On the whole, the police from here on ought to start raising the quality of the work they do.
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