Dhaka range’s all police stations under 24hrs surveillance

All the 96 police stations under Dhaka range of Bangladesh Police are now under round-the-clock virtual surveillance to ensure transparency and accountability of the law enforcers.

Night vision colour IP cameras have been recording everything inside and outside of the 96 police stations under Dhaka Range Police round-the- clock which helps ensure transparency and accountability at the police stations concerned, said an official.

"All activities including movement of police personnel, service seekers and also the detainees are to be monitored for 24 hours," Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Dhaka Range Police Habibur Rahman told BSS here today.

He said, "If necessary, we talk to persons inside the custody and hear their causes of arrest. If we see any anomaly in the police station, we give instruction and issue warning against the officials for solving anomalies to ensure smooth services to people."

"The IP cameras have a zoom capacity. This allows us to enlarge the image or video. We can see the surroundings by turning the camera to 180 degrees angle," Habibur said.

While visiting the monitoring room of DIG Dhaka Range office, this correspondent found that a team of police is monitoring the operations of 96 police stations digitally from the room located at Segunbagicha to ensure desired services of the visitors in the police stations.

So, in many cases the policemen concerned become surprise when they are contacted from the range office in case of any inconsistency.

Besides, some matters like whether women and children are being given priority or not, whether the same person is repeatedly coming to the duty officer's room, how the sentry is treating the service seekers, whether the sentry is sitting inside at night after locking the collapsible gate etc. are being monitored.

As part of the government slogan-"Mujib Borsher Ongikar Police Hobe Jonatar", Bangladesh Police has recently introduced a remote monitoring management system at 96 police stations in 13 districts of Dhaka Range to monitor the activities of all police stations.

Three night vision colour IP cameras have been installed in the duty officers' rooms, sentry duty-posts and custody to bring the police stations under a 24-hour monitoring system, Habibur said adding, "The 30-day video record of each police station will be kept in the Operations Control and Monitoring Centre."

DIG Habibur Rahman said the IP cameras are recording all activities at the police stations including those of allegations, irregularities, mismanagement and negligence of duty.

"Now people have already started thinking of the police as friends. The police force should now break down the wall of long-standing mistrust of the people and at the same time, should act in a way that does not hurt people's faith again," he said.

Bangladesh Police is intimately involved with the people and the force is responsible for maintaining law and order in the country, preventing adulteration, curbing militancy, prosecuting aspirants, curbing crime, assisting in the establishment of justice, minimizing traffic congestion and maintaining order on the roads, including special security protocols for VIPs.

The Operations Control and Monitoring Centre was set up at the Dhaka Range DIG's office in the capital to bring the police stations under the monitoring system.

The districts having round-the-clock digital monitoring at 96 police stations are in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur, Manikganj, Munshiganj, Narsingdi, Tangail, Kishoreganj, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Madaripur, Rajbari and Shariatpur.

Earlier, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Benazir Ahmed inaugurated the control centre on December 2.

As per the rules, information about detainees is taken at every police station every morning and after 10:00pm like whether there are any abnormalities in the custody or not, whether there are female detainees or not, whether there are female sentries or not, whether the jail is clean and tidy or not and whether there are sufficient winter blankets or not, whether the relatives of the accused are giving food in the jail or not, whether there are any unusual materials with the detainees or not are being monitored from the monitoring centre. Whenever there is any inconsistency in the activities of any police station, screenshots are being taken. Central officials talk live with policemen and service seekers concerned through cameras.

When the officers working at the centre talk and watch live video, police personnel of the police stations could not see any video footage.

According to the Dhaka Range organogram, there will be one inspector, one SI and two constables in the control room. Additional DIG (Ops and Intelligence) and additional SP (Ops and Intelligence) will supervise the activities.

During the office hours, the inspector (Operations and Control) will be in charge of the control room. Officers above the rank of inspector of Police of the Range Office will supervise the activities on the instructions. Urgent information must be communicated directly with the Range DIG.

Since September 2019, the police stations under Dhaka Range have been brought under strict monitoring.