The Police Reform Commission will amend the 150-year old police laws to reform Bangladesh Police to make it pro-people and service oriented, reform commission Chairman Safar Raz Hossain said today.
"We have to build a good police force for a democratic country and its main tasks will be to serve the masses," he told reporters at the Home Ministry in the Secretariat.
Replying to a question, Home Adviser Lt Gen Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury (Retd.) said that the home ministry would provide all possible support to reform the police.
Hossain said the reforms would include the best practices in the police following the police practices in different democratic countries.
"We have an idea about how police works in different democratic countries. We would try to include the best practices of those countries in the police reform proposals," he said.
Asked whether the reform proposals would be submitted within three months timeframe, Safar Raz Hossain said that the commission would try to complete the task within the stipulated time.
"We are working five days a week in the Home Ministry to finalise the proposals within the stipulated time," he said.
He said the Bangladesh Police follows 150-year-old law, The Police Act 1861 and Police Regulations, Bengal, 1943. "These laws are too old. No major changes have been made to the laws," he said.
The commission would hold discussions with the people, who have been working on the laws to bring necessary changes to the outdated laws.
He said, the commission has a plan to take the opinion of stakeholders such as the civil society, experts, media personalities, students and teachers of universities, common people and police to formulate a set of suggestions for reforming the police.
"We would just suggest to the government what changes need to be made in various sections of the police laws to make those up to date and modem," he said.
Police constituted the full Police Reform Commission led by former home secretary Safar Raz Hossain on October 3 and it has been given 90 days to accomplish the task.
Other members of the committee are: Additional Home Secretary (public security division) Abu Momtaj Sad Uddin Ahmed, Director General of the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) Mohammad Iqbal, former divisional commissioner Mohammad Harun Chowdhury, former additional inspectors general of police Sheikh Sajjad Ali and Md Golam Rasul, Dhaka University Law Department Professor Shahnaz i iuda, human rights activist ASM Nasiruddin Alan and a student representative.
