SOMETHING that is unpleasant to hear is also unpleasant to happen. This is what the Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner appears to have missed out on when on March 15 he requested journalists to use the phrase ‘repression on women’ instead of the word ‘rape’ in reports. The city police chief, who has attended as chief guest the inauguration of a mobile app-based service — HELP or Harassment Elimination Literacy Programme — for women in public transports to seek help by scanning a quick response, or QR, code, has given out his strong dislike for the word as a reason. He says that the word ‘rape’ is one of the two words that he dislikes very much, arguing that the words that are unpleasant to hear should be avoided. He also notes that the law focused on crimes against women and children has also been named the Repression on Women and Children (Prevention) Act. The service that has been launched, initially to be piloted on the buses plying the Basila-Sayedbad route, is a welcome step forward.
But, what the city police chief has said about the use of the phrase ‘repression on women’ instead of the word ‘rape’ appears an effort to make crimes look less grave by way of sugarcoating. The police official should understand that what is bad in deeds is bad in words, too. It is almost impossible to express the gravity of the crime without calling a spade a spade. The police should, rather, put in whatever efforts they need to stop rape so that journalists do not need to use the word in reports. This is, perhaps, the best way to stop the word from being used in reports, not by requesting journalists not to use the word. The proposition that the police official has put forth harks back to the use of the words and phrases such as ‘gunfight,’ ‘encounter,’ ‘crossfire’ or even ‘gangland infighting’ in official narratives to describe extrajudicial killing. Sugarcoating, which can make problems look less serious, does not help to attend to the crimes taking place on the ground unless the police can effectively stop the crimes. The city police chief has also showed such bluntness when he on March 8 advised city residents to ensure the security of their houses and businesses before they would leave Dhaka at Eid time. But it is the duty of the police to keep people’s houses and business safe and secure.
It is, rather, imperative that the police should deter crimes and ensure the safety and security of people and not dish out advice that sounds ludicrous and unfounded.
