Mishel Hasan: Imagine a man arrested after an FIR is lodged against him. The case gets a number, the police begin their investigation, and the months pass. There is no charge sheet and no trial. He is neither proved guilty nor cleared of suspicion. For many people in Bangladesh, this waiting period can last years. The amended Code of Criminal Procedure now tries to put a clock on it.

Every case begins with information to the police. Section 154 of the Code requires them to record information about a cognizable offence. The investigation that follows ends with a police report to the magistrate under section 173, and until that report arrives, the case cannot move forward. Delay at this stage is not small. IANS reported on 27 April 2026, citing The Daily Star, that more than 90 per cent of the 1,855 cases filed over killings and violence during the July 2024 protests still had no completed police investigation. Lawyer Ishrat Hasan told the paper that many of these cases name a large number of unidentified accused, which slows the work.

Weak infrastructure adds to the problem. Prothom Alo reported on 1 March 2024 that 789 cases under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act were stalled until December 2023 for lack of DNA reports. Only one working CID laboratory could process about 20 samples a day, while around 10,000 cases a year needed testing. Investigators had waited between one and four years, and many suspects stayed in jail in the meantime.

The new law tries to answer this delay. The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 2026 (Act No. XI of 2026) inserts two new sections after section 173. Judge Sheikh Md Muhibbullah wrote in The Daily Star that section 173B sets 60 working days for submitting the investigation report, allows extensions only in limited circumstances, and lets magistrates act against investigators who cause unreasonable delay. Section 173A allows a senior supervising officer to call for an interim report. If it shows too little evidence against an accused person, the officer may send it to the magistrate, who may discharge that person while the investigation continues against others. The person can still be named later if enough evidence appears. One section sets a clock, and the other lets weak accusations fall away early.

Critics will say that a deadline cannot create evidence. A clock cannot build a DNA laboratory, and officers pushed to finish on time may file thin charge sheets or close cases carelessly. These worries are fair. But they are an argument for careful extensions, not for having no deadline. A case waiting for a laboratory report is exactly the kind of limited circumstance that should be recorded openly, with the reason written down and checked by a magistrate.

Four steps would help the clock work. First, every extension request should state its reason in writing, and the magistrate should record whether the reason is real, so extensions do not become routine. Second, the government should fund forensic laboratories steadily. Prothom Alo reported that the second DNA lab stopped working after its donor funding ended, which shows how fragile this capacity is. Third, the police should publish yearly figures on how many investigations run past sixty working days, and why. Fourth, in cases with thousands of unnamed accused, supervising officers should use section 173A early to separate evidence from names.

A deadline is only a promise until someone is made to keep it. Bangladesh needs investigations that are fast, but also thorough, honest and open to review. If the new clock does that, it will protect the victim who waits for justice and the suspect who waits to be cleared.