Police in New Role: 67 inspectors to serve in BGB

Police officials, from now on, will also be posted at the Border Guard Bangladesh, mainly with the responsibility to make flawless seizure lists and prepare cases.

Although border guards have been handling post-arrest legal procedures for different border crimes with trainings from police, the civilian force’s direct involvement in these tasks is expected to produce better results, said BGB officials.

The government recently approved 4,282 additional manpower for the paramilitary force and 67 of them will be police inspectors.

“The provision for posting of police inspectors on deputation in BGB is there in the organogram of the para-military force restructured in 2010,” Lt Col Mohiuddin Ahmed, director operations of BGB, told The Daily Star.

The Police Headquarters in a letter on December 18 asked its different units to send a list of police inspectors interested in getting posted to BGB on deputation.

Those inspectors cannot be above 53 years and will have no more than one departmental punishment in their record, mentioned the letter.

Deputy Commissioner Anisur Rahman of the Headquarters of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said they would send 10 inspectors from DMP.

The rest of the police inspectors will be sent from other units.

According to the government deputation policy, usually an officer is posted on deputation for three years.

Lt Col Mohiuddin said each of the 59 BGB battalions will have one police inspector, who willparticularly look after the procedures of making flawless seizure lists, preparing cases and training BGB members on the tasks.

He did not provide any information about the posting of the other eight police inspectors.

“If necessary, the police inspectors will go to courts during trial as complainant or assist BGB force members, who lack knowledge as complainant, while the latter appear before court,” he added.

The designation of the police officials will still be inspectors, he said replying to a query.

Lt Col Mohiuddin noted that at present, police inspectors provide training to BGB members on making seizure lists and preparing cases.

The BGB is entrusted with the responsibility to defend the 4,427 kilometres border of Bangladesh, prevent smuggling of narcotics and illegal goods, illegal trespassing, human trafficking and trans-border crimes, and respond to internal security duties, as and when needed.

From January till October last year, BGB filed 22,163 cases and arrested 2,851 people in connection with the seizure of narcotics, gold, and border crimes like human trafficking and trespassing.

A top official of BGB said many of his colleagues lack sufficient know-how to deal with legal technicalities. They face problem regarding filing of cases, and usually seek help of concerned police stations.

They also need to appear in courts as complainant in many cases in spite of their dearth of knowledge of court proceedings.