Police morale cannot be fixed with a tablet: LGRD adviser

Adviser to the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives AF Hassan Ariff said today that there is no quick fix to the breakdown in police morale.
Police’s morale has been crushed due to their own activities and misdeeds of past years, he said.
“It is up to them [police] who have lost their morale. They must take measures so that they do not face the public’s outrage,” the adviser said while addressing reporters at the Secretariat after an emergency meeting at the home ministry regarding labour unrest.
Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury was also present during the briefing.
Hassan Ariff said the police need to regain their morale.
Their broken morale cannot be fixed with a tablet, he said.
But there needs to be public assistance for it, he said.
“We may be able to give them [police] assurance, but getting back the morale will depend on their activities,” said the adviser.
In reply to a query about taking steps to improve law and order as police remain absent in the field, Ariff said there are only law and order issues in industrial areas.
There are no reports of theft or robbery in villages and cities, he said. “There are no problems even if there are no police.”
He said police stay inside police stations, and go somewhere only after an incident takes place. It is not as though there are 17 crore police personnel to provide security to 17 crore people, he added.
Regarding the condition of police, Home Adviser Jahangir Alam said, “I do not possess anything that can improve the situation in one day.”
He said the image of the police is improving slowly, but steadily. “It will be slow. You have to give us time. I am taking action little by little.”
During July and early August, police and activists of the then ruling party activists opened fire on protesters of a student-led movement which, at first, demanded reform to the quota system in government jobs and eventually turned into a movement demanding prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation.
At least 550 people, including many law enforcers, were killed in the violence, according to this newspaper’s tally based on information from hospital sources and family members of victims.
Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on August 5, and for the following week there was no police on duty in the country. Police started joining duty from August 12.