Column by Mahfuz Anam: A story of two police killings and different accountability systems

n this column and through our reports, commentaries and editorials, we have repeatedly stressed the need for accountability of all public institutions run by taxpayers' money. Of them, the accountability of law enforcement agencies is most important. For, of all the institutions in a modern state, it is only the police force that is assigned lethal weapons legally and empowered by law to kill citizens, of course under clearly laid down conditions. But they have the power to kill. Each and every one of them is a potential 007, licensed to kill. Because they have the power of life and death over us—not to mention the power to detain, question, threaten, enter premises, confiscate, torture, etc.—they need to strictly adhere to the highest standards of their own procedure and their code of conduct.

But what happens if they don't?