Requisition brings quick bucks to cops
Ministry directive fails to stop use of private vehicles
Staff Correspondent
Police under cover of so-called requisition use about 300 private vehicles of businesspeople a day by force to carry out anticrime sweeps in Dhaka, flouting a home ministry directive, officials said. "Most of the vehicles the police use are private microbuses. The vehicles are more than needed. They could run anticrime operations with fewer vehicles," a home ministry official said, asking not to be named. State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar ordered the police headquarters to use vehicles of government offices in times of emergency, not private vehicles. But a senior police officer alleged: "We did not use the vehicles only for us all the time. The home ministry also asked us to do so for its own purpose and we have just carried out its order." Police took to coercion apparently for two reasons: to take bribe from the vehicle owner on his refusal to hand over his car and pocket part of the government money for fuel, the official said. "It is a clandestine dealing between dishonest policemen to earn money out of it," the official said, adding different police stations, Detective Branch, Special Branch, Criminal Investigation Department and Rapid Action Battalion all are part of the underhand dealing. The cost of using requisitioned vehicles goes higher and the government pays for it, as police disinform the authorities that they burn 100 litres of fuel for a vehicle in two days and the driver is paid Tk 50 a day. Miazi, a driver whose vehicle was taken away several times, alleged the police once forced schoolboys out of their vehicle on their way home and used it in an anticrime drive. "A microbus for destitute children was also requisitioned by traffic police in Mohammadpur," alleged Zakaria, who lives in the area. The police will not have to resort to requisition, if 1,000 new vehicles are provided for the police force, the home ministry official said. "We have an instruction to use vehicles at will and we are just following it," an on-duty sergeant told The Daily Star yesterday. "Requisition has become a means of financial benefit," another home ministry official said, adding the traffic police let go vehicles after taking money from owners. "My driver showed me a requisition slip and said he will have to go with the police to drive," Mohammad Jafar, a businessman, said of intimidation by law enforcers. Senior police officers reason out that they are far short of vehicles and requisitioning vehicles in times of emergency.
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