Police must act on evidence alone

Nearly 300 people went to a party meeting in Dhaka on Saturday, and then police hauled them away on suspicion of links to Awami League, whose activities remain banned. Officers raided the central office of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) after activists from Jubo Dal, the ruling party’s youth wing, reported hearing a Joy Bangla slogan inside. Police also found a banner demanding the release of Hasanul Haq Inu, the party chief, who is in jail over charges of crimes against humanity committed during the 2024 uprising. That was apparently reason enough for wholesale detentions.

However, according to JSD members, BNP activists turned up at their office during the meeting and beat some of them while police looked on. A student group allied to JSD claimed that members of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, had already hemmed the attendees in before Jubo Dal handed them to the police. Police say they are now “verifying” the attendees’ identities, and that those found to be involved in JSD politics will be released. In other words, the detentions came first, and the question of whether anyone had broken the law came second.

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While the police can and should go after anyone plotting or organising violence, a slogan and a banner alone cannot be termed a plot. “Joy Bangla” was the rallying cry of the 1971 Liberation War long before the Awami regime made it a partisan badge. And crucially, it is not banned, neither are JSD’s activities, unlike Awami League’s. Therefore, the police’s action against JSD members is concerning. The law is clear that detaining a citizen requires reasonable grounds to suspect a specific crime, not a mob’s say-so. When officers take their cues from partisan activists at the door, they stop acting as guardians of the law. That was precisely the pattern under Hasina, when Chhatra League enforcers did the intimidating, and police did the paperwork. BNP, ironically, knows this better than anyone because its own activists once spent years on the receiving end.

Those detained without evidence of an actual crime must be freed immediately. Anyone who allegedly assaulted JSD members, whatever their political identity, should be investigated. Police must ensure that arrests follow the rules of criminal procedure, not partisan demands. And BNP’s leadership should tell its activists that such vigilantism is not acceptable at all.