A MOTORCYCLE was stolen from in front of a high police official’s residence last week. Motorbikes are the easiest target for thieves. They either stealthily take away the bikes or stop the riders at night and snatch away their bikes. Sometimes, the bikers are knifed or beaten up. Last year, 285 such incidents took place in Dhaka city.
This time, it happened to a high police official. So the official called the Officer-in-Charge of local police station and asked him to take action. So on Friday, police conducted several raids in the area and picked up many persons, including workshop owners and motorcycle spares sellers. But their arbitrary arrest raised questions.
Much like the controversial and draconian Section 54 of the CrPC, Section 151 also gives the police wide and discretionary power to arrest and detain anybody. Under Section 54, police could arrest anybody just on suspicion that the person was planning to commit a crime. But this section had widely been abused by the police, the most sensational of it being the arrest and murder in custody of a private university student, Shamim Reza Rubel, in 1998. His death in police custody caused a huge outcry that led to a legal battle against this arbitrary power of police. Finally, the Supreme Court in 2016 issued a guideline that restricted arrests under Section 54. After this court ruling the use of this draconian law declined. But then police found an alternative to harass people by applying the Section 151 which gives police a similar arbitrary power to arrest anyone without a warrant.
Due to misuse of this law the police were able to pick up workshop owners and motorcycle spare parts sellers arbitrarily without any solid proof. The arrestees were kept in custody and they suffered mental torture. The detainees also suffered tremendous economic losses with regard to lost income and the money they had to spring to get lawyers to get them out of custody.
Why should ordinary citizens be harassed in such a manner? Such actions may end up by turning people into hardened criminals. The police should rather focus on information gathering to ensure that when they do arrest people it is the real criminals which they get. Police have no right to harass innocent citizens in such a fashion.
