The outgoing Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), Asaduzzaman Mia, expressed a few regrets, including not being able to ensure quality service to people at police stations.
“Services at most police stations were not up to the mark we expected. Despite making some improvements, we could not achieve the desired goal,” he said, adding that his other regret was not being able to bring discipline to city roads.
The commissioner said this addressing a farewell press conference at the DMP media centre in Dhaka on Thursday, the last of his 1,680 days as DMP chief.
Talking about the traffic situation, he said: “It is not solely our responsibility to bring discipline on roads as there are various agencies involved in taking care of issues like the traffic signal management and control system, and water-logging.”
He also blamed the persistent traffic chaos in Dhaka on a persistent culture of breaking the law.
"Despite frantic efforts, we were not successful in bringing order to the roads," the DMP commissioner said on the last working day of his 32 years in police service.
Responding to a question about the DMP being used for political purposes, Asaduzzaman Mia said: "It is a completely baseless allegation of such misuse during my tenure. Those who say such things are ill-motivated and pushing their own interest or agenda."
Policemen are servants of the republic. It is our duty to protect and serve the people. We implement the rule of law and contain anarchy. DMP has always done its duty in accordance with the law, he said.
Suggesting that the biggest challenge for him was to bring 34,000 members of DMP under one umbrella, the commissioner said imbuing all in the police with a professional attitude is a tough thing to do, but that they have been able to do that.
“Laws are made for everyone to obey and respect. It is a lawman's job to enforce the law if someone breaches it. However, nobody wants to obey laws in our country and it was a challenge for me to encourage all to do so,” the outgoing police commissioner continued.
Responding to another query about the involvement of police in crime, the commissioner said the presence of crime and corruption is common in every profession. However, lawful action was taken when anyone in the DMP was found involved in any corruption, crime, or unprofessional behaviour.
“I have closely observed that people were not harassed by police in my tenure. I was able to reduce arrests without a warrant by 99%.”
Asaduzzaman Mia also mentioned some of his other achievements such as no arrest of innocent people for harassment, providing a general diary (GD) format in every police station, and the introduction of an e-traffic prosecution system.
Another huge success was storing information of Dhaka residents on a digital database. As a result, no one can commit crime and hide their identities in Dhaka, he said.
“I won't say that I have been 100% successful as a commissioner but I have made many positive changes in the force,” the commissioner added.
