Govt to decide when army will withdraw

The government will decide how long the army will remain deployed at the field level to help the civil administration, said Col Intekhab Haider Khan, colonel staffof the Directorate of Military Operations at the Army Headquarters.

He was speaking at a press conference at the Dhaka Cantonment yesterday. The event was organised to inform the media about the army’s activities in maintaining law and order.

Responding to a query, he said it is not true that the army was deployed to assist the civil administration for 60 days.

The army was deployed as per the government’s decision, and the government will determine how long the deployment will be needed, Intekhab added.

He said the army is fully aware of the importance of preventing human rights violations or extrajudicial killings.

“Our top leadership has given clear instructions that we must not allow any extrajudicial killings to take place under any circumstances. We will make every efforts to prevent such incidents.”

The army official mentioned that they were doing everything to ensure that human rights violations do not occur.

He said more than 600 incidents of labour unrest were reported in the industrial sector alone, and many of those were violent.

Alongside army, law enforcement agencies also carried out their duties to maintain law and order, and if they did not make the timely interventions to pacify the workers, the situation could have been much more serious, Intekhab said.

Replying to another query from a journalist, he said army personnel took necessary actions in certain cases, but no individual was beaten up after being taken as a target.

The colonel staff said they were continuously monitoring the law and order situation.

According to Intekhab, a comparative analysis of the police’s crime data, conducted by the army, shows that crime decreased after the army was given magistracy power.

“This means the situation has not deteriorated. However, some might say that the situation hasn’t improved enough to meet the expectations,” he said, expressing hope that the situation will improve further.

In order to improve law and order, the government on September 17 gave magistracy power to the commissioned army officers for 60 days.

Intekhab said the army has recovered 6,000 illegal firearms and 200,000 ammunition during the ongoing operations, and 2,500 people have been arrested in this connection.

“Our operations are still going on,” he said.