From fear to trust

During Sheikh Hasina's sixteen-year reign of despotism, nearly every institution in Bangladesh suffered severe degradation.Bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, law enforcement agencies, bankers, and even the media-all succumbed to systemic corruption and decay, albeit, some more readily than others. Yet none disgraced themselves more thoroughly than the police, who became the regime's most despised and distrusted instrument of repression.

The disgraced police force stands drenched in the blood of over a thousand citizens, slaughtered during the July-August 2024 Mass Uprising, with countless others maimed in their ruthless defense of the most oppressive regime in Bangladesh's history. The fraudulent elections of 2014, 2018, and 2024 were actually state-sponsored crimes, made possible through the brutal collusion of the police. It is undeniable that rather than solely depending on its party machinery, the Hasina regime clung to power primarily through the use of police and bureaucratic enforcers as instruments of fear and repression against the populace.

To facilitate transition, the Interim Government busied itself with cosmetic changes like redesigning police uniforms and logos. It has also formed a Police Reform Commission (PRC), which produced a predictable set of recommendations-tweaking a few laws to supposedly create a "people-friendly" police force, proposing modest limits on the police's arbitrary powers of arrest and interrogation, and advocating for international best practices in crowd control to reduce casualties. Yet glaringly absent was any serious reckoning with the police's entrenched culture of brutality, impunity, corruption, and political servitude.

For too long, the police of the country have operated not as protectors of public safety but as instruments of political repression, a role that reached its peak under Hasina's rule. The force engaged in every conceivable form of abuse, such as: arbitrary arrests (often in plainclothes at midnight), custodial torture and murders, extrajudicial killings under the euphemism of "crossfire," enforced disappearances, and rampant bribery at every level-from filing a First Information Report (FIR) to manipulating charge sheets in favor of those who paid them.

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) exposed a damning reality: 96 percent of respondents believed it was impossible to receive any police assistance without paying bribes or pulling strings. Over two-thirds admitted to being extorted just to file an FIR, while 71 percent accused police of tampering with charge sheets for a price. Beyond corruption, the police routinely inflicted custodial torture, committed sexual violence against women in detention, and left a trail of deaths in their custody. A World Bank study found corruption as the bloodstream of Bangladesh police force, infecting every stage from the filing of complaints to prosecution.

Under Hasina's authoritarian rule, the Bangladesh Police-her regime's principal instrument of repression-ballooned in size and power. Between 2009 and 2023, the force added 83,000 new posts, swelling its ranks to 213,000. During the same period, its budget skyrocketed by over 400 per cent. But this massive expansion had nothing to do with serving the public. It was a calculated move to fortify the regime's stranglehold on the nation, turning the police into a well-funded machinery of intimidation, surveillance, and political persecution.

The bloody crackdown during the 2024 Mass Uprising left no room for doubt-the current police force is beyond reform and must not be allowed to persist in its present form. What is needed is nothing less than a complete and sweeping transformation-one that uproots the entrenched culture of violence, reshapes every aspect of operations and structure, and rewrites the legal frameworks that have long shielded their abuses. Anything short of this would be a betrayal of the sacrifices made by the people.

Chief Adviser Professor Yunus recently urged the police to act impartially during the upcoming elections. But such a call is far too timid. The police must do far more than behave fairly on election day-they must prove, in every hour and every action, that they have broken from their disgraceful past. They must abandon their role as a tool of oppression and corruption and instead become true protectors of the people. No more can they function as a bloated apparatus of repression and corruption. Their transformation must be total, visible, and uncompromising.

Any police reform must start with the immediate and complete repeal of the colonial-era Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) of 1898, the Police Act of 1861, and the Police Regulations of Bengal of 1943-archaic laws that continue to govern policing in Bangladesh despite the nation achieving independence twice, in 1947 and 1971. These laws were never crafted to serve the public-they were tools of colonial oppression, designed to maintain control and subjugation. They have since entrenched a culture of unchecked power, systemic abuse, and total impunity in the police force, and their continued existence is a glaring affront to the sovereignty of the people.

True reform demands the immediate replacement of archaic colonial laws with democratic, human rights-centered legislation; mandating that nobody can be arrested from their homes, properties or businesses without court-issued warrants; stripping of police's prosecutorial powers, with the authority to file criminal cases transferred to state-appointed prosecutors under the Attorney General's Office; and robust and independent oversight mechanisms to rein in the police's abusive power and hold them accountable for their actions.

Perhaps it is time to break away from the centralised, authoritarian police model and movetoward a decentralised, locally controlled system as practiced in many advanced democracies. Under such a framework, policing would be administered by elected district, municipal, and city governments, ensuring direct accountability to the communities they serve. Every locality would have its own police force, such as Dhaka City Police, Feni Municipality Police, Barisal District Police-the police staff primarily recruited from the local population. The national government would maintain only a small, elite police unit to handle national security issues, coordinating with local forces in times of genuine emergency.

Such a decentralised system would prevent the misuse of police by any national political party; enhance professionalism, integrity, and accountability as police would be directly answerable to local elected officials and residents; embed human rights at the core of policing, drastically reducing incidents of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and corruption; and strengthen community relations, as the police would live among and be closely watched by the very people they serve. Citizens would regain ownership over law enforcement, and accountability of police would be just next door-at the local elected office.

In short, the time for cosmetic tinkering is over. Nothing short of a radical and sweeping transformation of the police force will suffice. Bangladesh must dismantle the colonial structures that have perpetuated repression, end the deep-rooted politicisation that turned police into agents of tyranny, and rebuild the institution from the ground up-professional, accountable, and firmly rooted in the service of the people. The foundations for a new policing system must be laid now, without compromise, if Bangladesh is to have any hope of becoming a truly democratic and humane society.

Dr CAF Dowlah is a retired Professor of Economics and Law in the United States. Currently, he serves as the Chairperson of the Bangladesh Institute of Policy Studies (www.bipsglobal.org).