Please - Odhikar

Problems faced during project implementation
a. Difficulties faced during fact-finding
For the last three years, during fact-finding and monitoring, Odhikar faced a particularly difficult
problem. More often than not, officials use the Official Secrecy Act as a weapon to with hold
information. They use this law and state that either they or the fact finders will need to seek the
permission of ’higher levels’ before they can give out information, knowing very well that such
permission is strangled with red-tape and almost impossible to obtain. After a written application
to such ’higher levels’, Odhikar found that it took a lot of time for them to respond, if they ever
did and permission for gaining access to information was never permitted. Furthermore, it was
seen that journalists and investigators were restricted from police stations during the time of
mass arrests.
b. Difficulties faced during Thana monitoring
� Tracing arrested persons to their address
It is sometimes difficult to trace persons who had been arrested under Section 54 of Cr.PC and
later released, in order to collect information. Normally Odhikar’s Thana monitors collect
information from the residence of the arrested persons, or by conversing with them while they
are being freed from custody. However, in Fotulla Thana, monitors faced such problems. Since
Fatulla is an industrial area, like other industrial areas it has a lot of slums and a dense
population. Most of those arrested under Section 54 were the inhabitants of those slums. It was
extremely difficult to trace them from the addresses that they gave, since such addresses
(provided to the monitors by the police) only stated the name of the slum or the location of the
slum. In Dhaka City the scenario was fairly similar. Odhikar has learnt from its monitoring
experience over the last 10 years that there is a tendency of those arrested to either provide the
police with their village addresses (permanent address) or, in many cases, a false address in
order to elude further arrests.
� Impolite behavior and non cooperation
Police officials do not behave well with Thana monitors. In some cases, they did not even allow
them to see the arrest registrar and were non-cooperative in giving information. The escape route
that the matter was confidential and needing the permission of someone ’higher up’ was also
used. Some police officials even taunted human rights activists and the monitors and mocked the
concept of human rights. However, Odhikar was relieved that there were a few police officers
that actually cared about the human rights of people.
Some police stations are relatively busy (Motijheel Police Station, for example) and collecting
information from there is quite difficult. Monitors have to stand all day in such police stations
and if they roam around in the Thana they are usually questioned about their ’loitering’ and asked
to sit in the visitors room. Police find this constant watching annoying and are further irked if
Report 2005
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