SHOs will now stay put in their areas much to relief of builders

AIG listens to complaints on visit to ABAD office.


Our Correspondent March 24, 2012

KARACHI:


The home minister has prohibited frequent transfers of station house officers (SHO) to prevent them from taking their jobs for granted, said Karachi Additional Inspector General Akhtar Hussain Gorchani. 


The SHOs will be transferred only if an administrative need arises or if there is strong evidence against their performance. When the officers know that they might be transferred they don’t take much of an interest in doing their jobs properly.

Gorchani said this while on a visit to the office of Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) on Saturday.  Although the builders were frustrated they were happy to hear this, and with Gorchani himself, for taking the time out to come to their head office. They complained that political parties occupied open plots and vacant flats with considerable ease. If the builders try to get the land grabbers to move with the help of private security guards the party members used their clout to register cases against the builders, often in connivance with police.

The builders said that they were also tired of explaining things to each SHO who was posted in the area. It takes time to adjust to a new area and its problems.

The builders gave the example of Rabia City in Block 13 of Gulistan-e-Jauhar, which is apparently the biggest apartment complex in Asia. The entire project has been taken over by a political party, including some adjoining areas of Kamran Chowrangi, Sachal and Sohrab Goth. Police stations, also in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, came under scathing criticism since most of the complaints were reported from their jurisdiction.

“But please remember that policing is not the only responsibility of my department,” the AIG reminded his audience. “The police cannot man every street. You [the people] need to pool resources and take care of your own security as well.”

But he quickly added that this did not mean that the police were running away from their responsibility. Cooperation between the people and the force was important to discourage criminals.

Gorchani said that the police asked the government to enlist 10,000 constables for Karachi immediately to curb kidnappings, extortion and land grabbing. “This [hiring more people] is what we want right now,” the AIG said. “It will be wishful thinking on my part if I said we need such and such amount of money considering the government’s financial position.”

He also announced that a crisis management cell has also been set up at ABAD. The members of the association and a DSP will go and visit the site from where encroachments have been reported and then make reports for senior officials.

The regional chairman of ABAD, Saleem Kassim Patel, said that the police were able to counter encroachments and extortions whenever they acted on the problem wholeheartedly. “[Extortion] slips were distributed in Scheme-33 a few months back,” he said. “The SHO concerned took action and the criminals had to recollect all the slips.” But the frequent transfers of the SHOs sent the wrong message to the encroachers and led them to believe that they could pressure the police.

Arif Siddiqui, the vice chairman of ABAD, said that land grabbing was rampant in Gulstan-e-Jauhar, Gulshan-e-Maymar, Gadap, Malir, Super Highway, National Highway and in parts of Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

‘Encroachment proof’

Patel claimed that encroachment was nearly impossible in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) because properties could not be transferred by bribing the DHA officials because the information is computerised and the record also has a picture of the owner. “The people who occupy land in other parts are able to get ownership from the Board of Revenue where getting the names changed in thick files is a lot easier,” he said. He said that ABAD was working with the government to implement a DHA-like system in other government departments as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2012.

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