Meeting with PM: Cops want more power, benefits
Police officers want postings at the Anti-Corruption Commission, National Security Intelligence, Department of Narcotics Control, Department of Immigration and Passports, BRTA, and BIWTA.
Top police officers yesterday made this and many other demands during a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
They also demanded empowering the inspector general of police (IGP) to grant officers up to the rank of superintendents of police (SPs) leave for foreign trips and an additional one month's basic salary every year because cops get fewer holidays.
The IGP should also have the authority to dispose of departmental cases against assistant superintendents of police (ASPs) and additional SPs, they said at the meeting at the Prime Minister's Office on the third day of Police Week 2024.
The two aforesaid responsibilities currently lie with the home ministry.
They also demanded that the IGP be made a technocrat member of the Superior Selection Board that decides which officer gets promotion, more police members on metro trains for safety, and subsidised food items, known as ration, for around 60,000 cops who retired before 2020.
At present, only those who retired after 2020 can avail the benefit.
They demanded supernumerary posts for officers of the ranks of ASP, additional SP, and SP; a dedicated cybercrime unit; interest-free loans to buy private vehicles; and posting at Bangladesh missions abroad.
Several officials who attended the meeting said the prime minister promised to form a police medical core even though it was not among the demands they had made.
"You will have a medical college where your children will get the opportunity to study. You will have doctors," said an officer, quoting the PM as saying.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman said the premier also promised to establish a science university.
Habibur said he demanded police officers be posted in certain government agencies as "police are already involved in some activities of those organisations. If our officers are posted there, we will be able to work in a more coordinated manner."
Presently, a police officer of the rank of deputy inspector general (DIG) works on deputation as the director (operations) at the Department of Narcotics Control.
Besides, a DIG-level officer is now NSI's director (security) and another the counsellor general in India.
Since the BRTA, ACC and BIWTA have enforcement duties, cops should be there, said a top police officer.
The ACC currently has a 24-member police wing that only deals with operational matters. It also has an SP-and two additional SP-level officers who work as investigators.
Habibur said police have 32 additional inspectors general, but only three of them and the IGP are on grade-1.
At a police week event several years ago, the PM said police would get 10 grade-1 officers.
Monirul Islam, additional inspector general and chief of the Special Branch (SB) of police, demanded a university for police that would be named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The quality of policing will improve through research on forensic science and criminology, he added.
DMP Joint Commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker made the point about metro rail safety while Additional Deputy IG Ayesa Siddika made the demands about ration and car loans.
Pralay Kumar Jourder, SP of Jashore, demanded a separate cybercrime unit and police's own aviation unit.