Lack of adequate manpower and necessary infrastructure has been severely hampering activities of the Sylhet Metropolitan Police.
Despite having the largest jurisdiction area compared to other five metropolitan police units in the country, the SMP has to run its activities with the smallest workforce, sources in the SMP said.
An SMP official said they had to hire workforce regularly from the other units, including the district police lines and the reserve range of police, to ensure law and order in the city and two neighbouring upazilas.
'Promotion of the staff has also remained withheld for several years as the unit is yet to be regularised. For that reason, bright officers of the police express unwillingness to joint the unit,' he added.
The Sylhet Metropolitan Police and the Barisal Metropolitan Police were established through a gazette notification in 2006.
But, the SMP is yet to be regularised while the BMP was regularised in January 2010, sources in the SMP said.
Since the inception on October 26, 2006, the SMP is running its activities at a semi-pucca building of the Water Development Board at Naiyarpul in the city.
SMP covers an area of 499 square-km inhabited by 30 lakh people with only two police stations — Kotwali and Dakkhin Surma police stations.
A 1,488-man workforce was approved for the SMP but the existing workforce is some 1,000, as par the data available with the SMP office.
The approved manpower of the Dhaka Metropoli-tan Police is 24,459 that covers 416 square-km area, a home of some 1.5 crore people. Similarly, the Chittagong Metropolitan Police covers 152 square-km area with an approved 4,996-strong force, the data said.
Sources in the SMP said promotion of staff officials and other personnel, who qualified in the departmental examinations, had remained held up as the unit was yet to be regularised.
Besides, the Sylhet Metropolitan Police is also facing an acute crisis of transport and accommodation as no step in this regard was taken so far. Its has only 17 jeeps and pick-up vans while it needs to requisite some 100 vehicles each day for discharging duties, SMP sources claimed.
Talking to New Age, SMP commissioner Amulya Bhushan Barua said a large part of the existing workforce had to remain engaged in ensuring safety for the dignified personalities and organisations that include Hazrat Shahjalal shrine and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology and Sylhet Agricultural University alongside maintaining law and order in the city and its two neighbouing upazilas.
He said a proposal for adding 1,839 more cops to the present workforce of the Sylhet Metropolitan Police had been sent to the police headquarters in Dhaka last year, but the proposal was not approved.
'Ensuring security for such a large population under the SMP jurisdiction is very tough with the present manpower,' SMP commissioner said, adding that logistic supports should be increased for SMP to strengthen peoples' security.
Source : New Age
