Ministry of Home Affairs has issued fresh directives to deputy commissioners (DCs) to ensure the attendance of opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) at District Law and Order Committee meetings.
The move follows a report published in TIMES of Bangladesh highlighting the exclusion of opposition lawmakers from these sessions.
According to the ministry’s Political Wing, DCs have been instructed to ensure that all MPs, who serve as advisors to the committee under government regulations, are duly invited to every meeting.
On 4 June, TIMES published a report titled “Law and order committee: DCs sideline opposition MPs.”
In the report, opposition lawmakers from various districts alleged that despite an existing Ministry of Home Affairs notification, they were neither informed of the meetings nor invited to participate in most instances.
Speaking to TIMES on Monday, Dr Ziauddin Ahmed, additional secretary (political wing) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, said, “As there is a ministry notification on this matter, we have told the DCs to implement it properly.
After receiving complaints that many MPs were not called in some areas, we spoke with the DCs. While MPs are invited in most places, instructions have been issued to ensure their invitation where it was not done.”
He added that the notification was originally issued in the interest of maintaining law and order and stability within districts.
A prior investigation by TIMES revealed that several DCs were not adhering to the ministry’s gazette, which appoints all district MPs as committee advisors. As a result, many opposition MPs from Jamaat and the NCP were being deprived of the opportunity to attend these meetings.
The 31-member “District Law and Order Committee” was reconstituted via a notification from the ministry’s Political Branch-2 on 26 February this year.
The committee is chaired by the district magistrate or deputy commissioner as president, with the additional district magistrate serving as member secretary.
The gazette explicitly states, “All members of parliament of the district will act as advisors to the District Law and Order Committee. The minutes of the meetings must be supplied to them regularly. They must be requested to attend the meetings through separate notices.”
