OPINION: Swedish couple, cops and our concerns

You are going with your wife and some policemen stop you and rob you of your money – all in dollars, $3,000 to be exact. As you go around beating the bush to get justice, a civilian suddenly appears on your door step another fine day and offers the same amount of money, in dollars too.

How would you feel about that? Relieved? Surprised? Aghast? Ashamed of the way police work? More helpless than before? Deeply suspicious of those people who are paid by the taxpayers to maintain law and order?

May be the Swedish couple who were robbed in the similar fashion in Jessore and then got back the money felt all of the above. The unidentified man who returned the money also wanted to get a paper signed by the couple. Suspicious?

READ MORE: Swedish couple get back money

This incident actually happened during Police Week and just a few days after a Bangladesh Bank official was robbed and tortured by police and another similar incident in Uttara. We are then forced to ask, what is happening to our police force?

Why have they become so reckless and lawless?

We understand that of the huge number of police force, only a few have committed such crimes. But have these incidents been properly handled? And of course, we know from personal accounts that scores of such incidents are taking place every day and never reported to anyone.

We also feel ashamed to think of how the Swedish nurse who had come with her Bangladesh-born husband to this wonderful land of green and rivers felt when they faced this incident. She married the Bangladeshi man out of love. And what impression did she get of her husband's homeland now that this has happened to them?

The root of this rogue behavior is deep down in the system of police recruitment. Who are being recruited and how are they being recruited? Have we not heard of bribes exchanging hands for police jobs? In fact, a syndicate which allegedly handled such deals was busted a few months back.

The police administration has to be more sensitive to allegations of police crimes. They just should not brush them aside with so-called probes. It is a question of restoring faith and dignity in a force that has a direct role in brightening the government's image. Let's not smear the image like this.