THE Dhaka Metropolitan Police launched a three-day special drive on Wednesday to tackle criminality in the nation's capital. There are a couple of ways in which the drive can be looked at. In the first place, it is a welcome move for the important reason that when citizens are face to face with lawlessness, it is the social order which threatens to get frayed. In the second, the launch of the drive is an acknowledgement by the police that all is not well where security of life is concerned in this metropolis. It is now to be seen whether the drive yields any perceptible success or is merely one of those exercises that begin with a bang and end in a whimper. Besides, one is not quite sure that a three-day special drive will do what normal police activities have not done in the past. Again, it is a sign of how bad things have become that the police now must go for special drives against criminal elements, over and above their normal work.
That said, one hopes that the drive will achieve its goals and that citizens will end up heaving a sigh of relief. More importantly, one must bear in mind the limitations that the police have persistently suffered from over the years, which fact again has left them vulnerable where handling crime is concerned. It is against this background that one will expect the authorities to take certain meaningful measures to ensure that the police are able to do their job to their own as well as public expectations. For the immediate future, it is necessary that the police force be beefed up, enough to allow it to handle crime without having to stretch its resources. For years there have been complaints about police manpower not being adequate in dealing with law and order. It is a situation which calls for a rethink, the ultimate objective being pumping more investment into the force. Part of the investment must include provisions of training in order to turn the force into an organization ever ready to spring into action.
In the longer term, there is a whole lot that must be done to add substance and quality to the services rendered by the police. In this context, the issue of police reforms assumes huge significance. During the period of the caretaker government, a good number of reform measures in various areas were talked about and indeed undertaken. Unfortunately, the matter of police reforms was not taken up comprehensively. Now that an elected government is in office, the issue must be taken up in earnest. Unless reforms are brought about in the police service (and those reforms must also ensure that the police remain free of partisan political influence or control), there is not much to be gained from on-again, off-again police drives against lawless elements.