Providing physical security to common Bangladeshis

A BSS news item carried in daily sun on 28 December 2011 informs that the government is to add a specially trained police battalion to provide security to the president, the prime minister and other VIPs alongside the existing forces. The officials familiar with the process were quoted as saying: “The proposed team will be called Security and Protection Battalion to provide security to the VVIPs, visiting VVIPs and other important persons.”

Another news item in daily Prothom Alo on 31 December exclaimed at the number of legal weapons that have been deposited to the authorities in Comilla prior to the holding of the mayoral polls there.

If we analyze the above two news items, there are reasons to worry as far as the existing security situation is concerned. Providing extra security means that there’s a need for it. Holders of the top posts in the country must have felt the level of insecurity for them has increased. Thus, the arrangement for additional forces for them. And for the increasing number of legal firearms also that the people, who can afford, now want to possess weapons more than they wanted in the past. The level of insecurity for them has also risen.

Having said that, it must be said that providing additional security to the VIPs is quite easy. We just need a decision to implement that. Purchasing more firearms by more people is also easy, as these people can afford to buy them. What isn’t easy is to provide security for the people at large. If we scrutinize the extent of [physical] insecurity of the common people, the situation isn’t at all satisfactory.

Let’s have a look at, say, about only three major physical threats of the common people. If we just look at proliferation of illegal weapons, unlawful sale of chemical substances and the state of the traffic system, we actually don’t anything else for death rates across the country.

Proliferation of illegal firearms isn’t at all new here. Illegal weapons have been in use for the last 40 years. Sometimes, this country has been used as the corridor to smuggle weapons by the illegal arms traders and sometimes, Bangladesh has been the target market. Countless lives were brutally ended and thousands have been crippled due to the presence of illegal weapons. But containing this proliferation was only limited in running few raids.

The use of illegal firearms is now regarded as an act of terrorism. We now have a counter-terrorism strategy and anti-terrorism act in place. If we confine our job in mere occasional raids, then our approach is grossly misled. The use of guns shows the entry points smuggling are utterly unguarded. We’re not running “special drives” against the sources. If we can’t do it, what’s the use of having an anti-terror strategy?

Again, a recent incident of throwing four hand bombs in Dhaka’s Matijheel area and seizing three truck-loads of explosive substances indicate the easy access of the people to these materials. These bombs have been being used in Bangladesh for a long time now. These are very easy to manufacture if you just know where to find the chemical substances. A class-eight boy, having access to these chemicals, can assemble a bomb. And that’s exactly what is happening in the country.

Explosives substances are too easy to find. There have been many discussions and directions for containing this availability of these materials, but the situation hasn’t improved. The authorities responsible have miserably failed monitor the illegal sale of these items. This failure has led to this situation: bombs are being thrown during the political strikes, mugging incidences as well as in settling personal vendettas. We’ve witnessed incidences like 21 August [2004] grenade attack and the countrywide serial bomb attacks [on 17 August 2005], but haven’t learnt our lesson from them. If the ministry concerned doesn’t have enough manpower to do this monitoring, it should let someone else to shoulder the job. But the job has to be done, otherwise people would continue to die!

When we talk about death, there’s a completely different form of threat that is killing thousands of Bangladeshis every year: traffic accidents! It may sound funny, but this country has the biggest number of “collateral damage without any war”. The number of deaths due to traffic catastrophes [which also includes ferry capsizes on the rivers] is much higher than the number of casualties in any recent wars across the world. Humans are dying on the roads and we can’t do anything about it.

The responsibility to reduce these casualties doesn’t only rest on the state; this is everybody’s responsibility: the government, the experts, the drivers, the law enforcers and lastly the people themselves need to shoulder their respective duties. However, the issue of road mishaps is turning out to be only a subject of talk shows on TV channels and newspaper editorial pages. We’re talking more that we’re doing the real work to prevent them. When there’s an incident, we talk about it and give orders to take measures. A day after that, it’s always as it has been.

Well, if we combine the above three physical insecurities prevailing in the country, the picture would be appalling to anybody with a sane state of mind. And if we want to be successful in providing security to the people, either we need to consider each and every citizen of this country as a VIP, or we should all be given legal firearms licences.