File photo of policemen. PHOTO: FILE.
The capital’s police put to practice its plan of overcoming trust deficit between residents and the police on Friday.
Inspector General of Police Sikandar Hayat and members of a newly formed “citizen-police coordination committee” for the Kohsar Police Station’s jurisdiction inaugurated the committee’s office room at the police station in Sector F-7.
The committee is the first of similar public-police committees envisioned by the Islamabad Police to be established at every police station in the federal capital.
Hayat said the main objective behind constituting the committee is to bridge the public-police divide and eliminate the notorious “thana culture.”
He said the culture, which has become a source of distrust for most Pakistanis, is a product of several problems on part of the police such as non-availability, lack of service delivery, corruption, abuse of power and illegal detentions. He said the Islamabad Police is trying to change the culture and establish a better relation with the capital’s residents.
The ten-member Kohsar Police Station citizen-police coordination committee is composed of human rights activist Farzana Bari, F-7/1 resident Raja Muhammad Yaqub, Saidpur resident Sabiha, businessman Raja Amad Arif, Jinnah Super Market President Ijaz Abbasi, Super Market President Sarfaraz Mughal, F-7/3 resident Colonel (retd) Naseer, journalist Asif Bashir Chaudhry and France Colony residents Daniyal Masih and Basharat Ghauri.
The Islamabad Police have also previously experimented with citizen-police committees but the exercise never produced significant improvement in resolving public complaints. Hayat said previous experiments had failed because committee members had also taken to the corrupt practices of police officials they were supposed to hold accountable.
He said members of the Kohsar committee are not expected to repeat the mistakes of the past because of their personal exemplary record and good character.
He said it was important for the members to be neutral and respectable, and with no political affiliations, so residents can trust them.
“We don’t want this committee to share the policing at this police station rather we want them to oversee the affairs of the police station,” Hayat said.
The police chief said the committee’s members would be completely allowed to ask police officers at the Kohsar Police Station about pending investigations, detentions and police attitude as well as cases that might benefit from mediation.
According to the police, committee members can meet suspects arrested by the police to check for human rights violations. The members will be assisted by Human Rights Officers (HRO), which are basically police officers appointed to ensure human rights are not violated, at the police stations.
If members see any violation of standard procedure at the police station, they will direct the HRO to rectify the situation and send a report to the Zonal Superintendent of Police.
Chaudhry, a broadcast journalist and a member of the committee, said he hoped the committee’s attempts to put an end to crime would be successful and the committee would be able to help the community.
Ijaz Abbasi said he was a member of a mediation committee in the past but the roles and responsibilities of the present committee are bigger and better.
Bari said people are still fearful of the police even though their mention should elicit a positive reaction of safety and security among the public.
The committee’s existence is commendable but there are apparent shortcomings in the current set-up. There is no term limit for existing committee members and there does not seem to be any mechanism for independent merit-based selection of new committee members if one of the members leaves. The committee’s members also do not seem to have any authority to review and take action against excesses caused by the police.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 9th, 2013.
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