Staff Reporter:
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, new Officers-in-Charge (OCs) have been appointed to 527 police stations across the country through a lottery system just before the announcement of the schedule for the 13th National Parliament elections.
“A total of 527 OCs were transferred through lottery,” assistant inspector general (AIG), media, Police Headquarters A.H.M. Sahadat Hossaine told yesterday.
All the police stations in 64 districts except the metropolitans have got new OCs through the transfer, he said.
An official order was issued in this regard yesterday.
Police Headquarters reported that the country has a total of 639 police stations—527 at the district level and 110 in metropolitan areas. The lottery system was applied only to district-level police stations; posts in metropolitan areas will be handled internally by respective commissioners.
The unprecedented move aims to ensure neutrality, proper duty execution, and a stable law-and-order situation during the elections.
According to Police Headquarters, a list of honest and impartial inspectors was prepared based on rec-ommendations from unit chiefs.
The final appointments were made through a lottery conducted from this vetted list, which has been offi-cially termed as a list of “recommended” officers.
The lottery-based postings include 98 OCs in 13 districts of Dhaka range, 111 in 11 districts under Chit-tagong range, 64 in 10 districts of Khulna range, 36 in 4 districts of Mymensingh range, 46 in 6 districts of Barisal range, 39 in 4 districts of Sylhet range, 71 in 8 districts of Rajshahi range, and 62 in 8 dis-tricts of Rangpur range.
Earlier, on November 26 last, the Ministry of Home Affairs appointed Superintendents of Police (SPs) in 64 districts through a similar lottery process, under a notification signed by Deputy Secretary Mahbu-bur Rahman.
