Cops asked to know their guns

All police personnel have been asked to master the techniques of properly operating their weapons.

In a set of directives aimed at ensuring security of the force, the Police Headquarters (PHQ) has ordered the unit chiefs to ensure that all the officers and constables under their command assemble and disassemble arms "off and on" to learn the knowhow, apart from the annual firing practice.

The instructions were issued on Monday as senior police officials believe, according to highly placed sources, that cops should keep practise operating arms more often than once a year.

The policemen often get puzzled at moments that require instant action and they in many cases do not even know how to operate the weapons they are carrying during their duty, some senior police officials told The Daily Star yesterday.

The lower-tier cops will spend some time once a week taking training at their respective stations from senior officials, they said.

Several officer-in-charges of different police stations under Dhaka Metropolitan Police confirmed The Daily Star of receiving the directives.

The move came hard on the heels of a November 4 attack on a police checkpoint in Ashulia that left a constable dead and another critically injured. The incident exposed a lack of skill, training, professionalism and seriousness in the lower tier of police as five constables, despite being armed with rifles and shotguns, could not resist two armed attackers.

Police sources say during the six-month basic training, constables shoot only 90 bullets from four different firearms -- Chinese Type 53 Carbine, shotgun, sub-machinegun and pistol -- for two days of shooting practice at different centres.

Besides, while on the job they are allowed to fire 40 bullets from Type 53 rifle, shotgun and pistol at a daylong annual programme.

In the 18-point directives, a copy of which has been obtained by The Daily Star, the PHQ asked the unit chiefs to set up scanning facilities at all police installations and search all visitors at the entrances of the police, DMP, SB, CID and RAB headquarters, and other installations of the force.

It also strictly prohibited entry of any unregistered vehicles into the police installations.

The police headquarters wants high walls or barbed-wire fences around the police installations, and the unit chiefs to pay surprise visits to the units under their command.

The unit chiefs were asked to implement the orders within five working days and report it to the inspector general of police.