Even after having numerous laurels in his 1,680 days as DMP commissioner, the just-retired police chief of the capital, Asaduzzaman Mia, has said he is not cent per cent happy with what he has achieved. He was taling at a 'meet the press' event at the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) media centre yesterday, his last day as chief.

He said the police force had never been used for political purpose in the last four years. "It is not at all true that the DMP is working under political motivation. This is a misleading and propagandistic statement." He also said curbing terrorism was the biggest success of the police in the last four years. "Bangladesh is now considered as a role model in terms of curbing terrorism. Besides, to keep the city free of crime, the campaign of collecting information of tenants and landlords is another of our success."

About his failures, Asaduzzaman Mia said police stations have failed to give due services to people. Another is failure to control Dhaka traffic, he said. Replying a question, the DMP commissioner said: “Policemen are employees of the Republic. They act according to the Constitution. The DMP has never done anything for political purposes. These things are misleading. There was a situation in Dhaka once when miscreants threw petrol bomb at vehicles, some were set on fire, and some started vandalism.

The DMP has always worked to protect the lives of the people and arrest those involved. It will not be correct to say this was done for political purposes.” “To maintain law and order, 34,000 policemen are working under one umbrella and in the same family. This is one of my successes," he added.

The commissioner mentioned that the DMP has collected information about tenants.

“We have been able to make a software database. We now have information on 72 million renters in the capital. No terrorist can commit any crime by hiding his identity in Dhaka city," he said.

Referring to failures, Asaduzaaman Mia said: "We are not 100 per cent successful. We could not reach the desired goal of providing service to people at police stations. There has been improvement, but we have more work to do."

"The second failure is that we could not make Dhaka city free from traffic jams. It is not our responsibility alone. Road construction, signal lights, drainage are the work of several other authorities,” he added.

"The traffic signal system of Dhaka city is maintained by another authority. Apart from this, when city roads are under water, we have to take the help of another authority.

Owing to this, traffic congestion has not been fully reduced. The biggest problem, however, is the tendency of the people to disobey the law," he noted. "As commissioner, I will not say that I have been 100 per cent successful, but I have brought about a lot of changes. In addition to stopping harassment while making arrests without warrant, we have introduced the GD format, e-traffic prosecution," he said.

To a question about some policemen in uniform committing crime, Asaduzzaman Mia said in every profession there are corrupt people. "The police force is no exception. If someone commits a crime, it is in his/her personal capacity. The police force will not take the responsibility for this," he added.