Editorial
Changes in police administration
Good step, but more needed
The recent shake-up in the police administration should be leading to matters of a positive note. The controversy in which the police have found themselves in the past many years and especially in the five years gone by has been regrettable. The sense of regret has everything to do with the manner in which individuals were recruited into the police service and the inexcusable way in which they were put to partisan use. The kind of disrepute which an organ of the state suffers from once it becomes pliable to political maneouvering is precisely the ailment Bangladesh's police force has come down with. The expectation, now that the caretaker administration appears intent on reforming administration almost across the spectrum, is that there will be a major, purposeful overhaul of the police in Bangladesh.The transfers and relocations of senior police officers carried out on Tuesday are, we would like to believe, a sign that the old order may actually be giving way to the new. There are reasons to think that an attitudinal change may have come into the police administration mindset. Such an attitude, assuming there is no let-up in the present endeavour, cannot but contribute to a recasting of the police department. The new ambience arising out of the politically changed conditions in the country should act as a spur to the expected and planned changes. It will be fair enough to suppose that a mere juggling around of men will not be enough to solve the irritating puzzle the police force has become in recent times. We will point, though, to steps which do give the country the confidence that the changes we look for in the police might actually begin to occur. The cancellation the other day of the recruitment of more than seven hundred individuals taken into the force on a questionable basis is such a step. But that is only part of the wider cobweb that has settled on the police force, which means therefore that much more will have to be done to bring about a qualitative change in police administration. The issue of reforms of the police system inevitably comes up here. That is indeed a fundamental issue. As the new men in charge go about changing things in the police department, serious thought must also be given to the matter of sensitizing policemen to such basic issues as human rights. In these present times, the police are happily free of the straitjacket they are usually wont to be in during periods of political government. Such a situation ought to be put to good advantage where an overhauling of the service, through reforms, et al, is concerned. Overall, it is a restoration of professionalism and ability we expect to define the police administration once again.
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