Police to exercise highest professionalism to maintain law, order: DMP chief

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Md Mainul Hasan today said police would work with the highest professionalism to maintain law and order in the metropolitan areas.

“We will make required reshuffle in the DMP. Those who had shown amateurism (while discharging their professional duties during the recent student-led protest) would be exposed to justice after identifying them,” he said.

He was speaking his maiden “Meet the Press” after taking the charge of the DMP as its chief at its headquarters here.

The DMP boss said some highly ambitious and non-professional police officers put the entire police force face-to-face with the public in the past.

“So, the mental strength of the police force was broken following the violence centering the student-public movement, mass upsurge and fall of the past government. Many policemen were killed and injured (in that violence). The field level cops went into hiding fearing to death and our infrastructures were damaged in many areas,” he said.

Giving a brief description of the damage caused during the recent violence, Mainul said almost all offices and police boxes of the traffic police were vandalized whereas 22 police stations out of 50 under the DMP had been entirely damaged and their arms and ammunition were looted.

“We have been trying to infuse confidence into the police personnel as they returned to their work soon without being panicked,” he said.

He said the police personnel have become annoyed with some of the highly ambitious and non-professional police officers and he along with high ups have been trying to calm them by accepting some of their rational demands.

As part of the measure to remove fear from the cops and maintain law and order, armed forces personnel have been deployed at each of the police stations, the DMP commissioner said.

“The presence of the armed forces personnel helped bring confidence in the police and improve the law and order situation,” he added.

Alongside the armed forces personnel, the members of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Ansar extended all out cooperation while the students, people and some social and cultural organizations helped boost mental strength of the police force, he opined.

Mentioning that the traffic jam is the major problem of the Dhaka city, he said, “We need a coordinated plan, effective measures and wholehearted cooperation from the people and public awareness to address the traffic jam.”

The DMP was formed in 1976 with 12 police stations and 6000 policemen and now it has become the symbol of confidence and trust of the city dwellers.

The DMP commissioner paid rich tributes to the martyrs that include police personnel killed in the Liberation War and student-people movement.

High officials of the DMP were present during the meeting. (BSS)