The police have been busy.
The latest bit of news about Dhaka’s finest is that a group of three policemen beat up a rickshaw-puller named Saju in Porabari slum in the Kalyanpur area, where Saju was hanging out with his friends.
Afterwards, Saju alleges, he was dragged to a different location where a constable shot him in the leg. Saju is alive, but not well. Another police officer, speaking to a TV channel, floated the possibility that the gun might have gone off accidentally. Accidentally.
Sounds like a Tarantino movie -- except it’s a lot weirder, and there is nothing funny about it. This is real life.
The last time a disturbingly similar crime was committed in the hands of uniformed officers was when tea-seller Babul Matabbor, a man in his mid-40s, was attacked by policemen in his shop. Babul’s body caught fire from a stove. As the man burned, the policemen not only did nothing to help him, they prevented help from coming in from outside. Babul succumbed to his injuries later at a hospital.
What is up with our police? Is it simply that a very large number of rotten apples are perpetrating acts of violence and undermining the stability of our law and order system? Or is it that the system is so utterly sick and corrupt to its very core that there is no saving it, no matter how much disciplinary action we make a show of taking?
This newspaper has editorialised numerous times about the need to be hard on police officers who commit criminal offenses. Sure, maybe it would be a step in the right direction if we started showing zero tolerance towards those police personnel who are nothing but violent, sociopathic criminals hiding behind a green uniform and a legally authorised gun. But how many bad officers are there? How many policemen walking the streets are utterly unfit to do so? Some of them? Most of them? All of them? Where do you begin?
The fact is, incidents like the one of rickshaw-puller Saju and tea-seller Babul are happening with such alarming regularity that reports like these no longer even phase people.
Our system is so diseased and devoid of hope that the average person doesn’t even expect local law enforcement to behave neutrally and decently. Forget about “serve and protect,” we are happy when cops stay out of our way.
Frequent lynch mobs show the frustration all around -- nobody believes law enforcement will actually do anything about anything. The only time people expect a cop to lift a finger about anything is when the said cop stands to make a bit of money.
It is no big secret that many of the policemen you run into on a day to day basis are on the prowl for making a bit of side income. If you are patient and ask him why he’s taking bribes, you might even be treated to a sad little story -- prices are going up, he wants to send his kid to a nice school, all that.
So, if you want a bit of assistance from a policeman standing by, naturally, he would ask the question: “What’s in it for me?”
From taking small bribes to running their own full-on extortion rackets, policemen have their ways of fattening their wallets, and they walk the streets harassing tea-sellers and rickshaw-pullers. Sometimes things get out of hand, and there are not-so-accidental dead bodies. The culture of bribe-taking and extra-judicial violence is so endemic to police culture that it is impossible to even ask questions about it without having your backside handed back to you for your laughable naivety.
All this is very grim. Complete cynicism and increasing aversion towards our own police force cannot be the answer for a modern-day republic. This isn’t the Wild West, and the fact is, we do need some sort of functional law enforcement system. We do need governmental institutions that guarantee and protect life and liberty. We do need violent criminals to get locked up, and innocent bystanders to be protected from irrational lynch mobs. We need a police badge to mean something.
But for that to happen, there needs to be some basic accountability in the police force and some kind of mechanism to ensure their abuses of power do not continue unchecked. Bad cops need to be afraid that, if they get out of line, they will have hell to pay. Instead of shrugging with indifference the next time a police officer abuses the rights of a poor citizen, anyone and everyone with a conscience needs to rise up and make themselves heard.
Some degree of police corruption, police brutality, and disproportionate use of force exists in all countries of the world. However, the challenge Bangladesh faces in reforming its police force is unique and without equal. So many things would fall into place for us if only the police could be straightened out.
It won’t be an easy journey. But we have to try.