As the police are overwhelmed with the continued pressure of tackling blockade-related violence across the country, other wrongdoings by career criminals are reportedly being ignored.
Law enforcers in the capital said they had to change their priorities about which cases to chase as violence continued to escalate during the 20-party alliance’s ongoing blockade programme and hartals.
As most of the police personnel are now being forced to stay on-duty for 16 hours a day to prevent arson attacks and sabotage, a void has been created in investigating regular cases like murder, theft, robbery and mugging, police officials admitted.
Jalaluddin Ahmed, assistant inspector general at police headquarters, said law enforcers usually followed a duty routine chart, but had to improvise with the duty roster when the situation became uncertain.
“This does not mean that we are not doing our routine work, but we are doing those works on a priority basis, considering which was more concerning for the general public,” the AIG added.
Commenting on the added pressure the police have had to undertake since the blockade began, Gulshan police station Officer-in-Charge Rafiqul Islam said the police were now busy working around the clock to stop acts of sabotage; staying occupied with these added tasks has created difficulties in probing regular cases, he added.
According to the crime information and prosecution department of the police, each month in the capital, charge sheets for an average of 1,200 cases are submitted to the court from the 49 police stations. However, the number reduced to around 800 during January, with most of these cases related to theft and recovery of drugs.
“We are receiving investigation reports of different cases but facing some difficulties to get it since last month [January],” said DMP Additional Deputy Commissioner (prosecution) Anisur Rahman, admitting that the difficulties might be a result of the ongoing unrest.
Commenting on not being able to investigate regular cases, a police superintendent told the Dhaka Tribune that they had received orders from the police high ranks to put the maximum effort on tackling political unrest.
The superintendent added that police personnel have become tired of continually working against blockade violence, causing progress in solving regular cases to become sluggish.
DMP Deputy Commissioner Biplab Kumar Sarkar also admitted that the police were now unable to give their complete attention in solving crimes as they were forced to stop political violence throughout most of the day.
However, law enforcers were trying to maintain a balance between the new workload and regular work by doing all the tasks, said Biplab, also the general secretary of Bangladesh Police Service Association.
Alina Khan, chief executive of Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation, said many of the rights body’s clients were not being able to file cases despite repeatedly going to police stations, where they were being told that police officials are not present there.
In Bangladesh, investigation of many cases do not see the light of the day, Alina said, adding that the inability to file new cases because of the police’s preoccupation in tackling political unrest would cause a larger impact on society.