CAT: A Study on Bangladesh Compliance demonstrates that the laws relating to torture in Bangladesh do no fully comply with the international treaty obligation on the part of Bangladesh to criminalise and penalise the acts of torture under the CAT. As a ratifying State of the CAT, Bangladesh has yet to enact specific legislation making torture as a criminal offence. 6. State Practice: Deviations from the International and National Standards Like in many other post colonial societies, torture by law enforcement agencies is not a recent phenomenon in Bangladesh. The organisational structure and all activities of the police force in Bangladesh have long been regulated by the Police Act of 1861, a legislation made by the British colonial rulers. This law was meant for maintaining law and order situations which existed hundreds of years ago and most importantly, for protecting the vested interests of the colonial power. This trend was prevalent even sixty years after the British rulers had left the Indian sub-continent. In independent Bangladesh also, successive political governments exercised unrestricted and unauthorised power over law enforcement agencies for political gains. As a trade off, various law enforcement agencies enjoyed opportunities to conduct a series of gross violations of human rights with impunity that amounted to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of the Constitution and other national and international laws. 41