Force to open official Twitter and Facebook accounts. CREATIVE COMMONS
ISLAMABAD: Businesses and political parties have already taken to the social media to get their messages out. Now it is Islamabad Police’s turn.
The capital’s police force has decided to activate social media accounts “for disseminating information to the public and getting recommendations from them to improve policing,” according to a police spokesperson.
The decision was taken during a meeting between Inspector General of the Islamabad Police Sikandar Hayat and members of the central coordination committee earlier this week.
The coordination committee is part of an initiative to bridge the public-police divide in the capital. The committee will liaise with the officials to inform them of the concerns of residents.
The central coordination committee includes Islamabad High Court Bar President Haroonur Rasheed, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Shaban Khalid, documentary filmmaker Samar Minallah, Asad Ansari and Dr Pervaiz Ahsan.
The meeting focused on helping to create a people-friendly policing environment in the capital and resolve disputes with the involvement of civil society.
The Islamabad Police will open a Twitter account and create a Facebook page which would both be used to inform the public about important incidents and get their feedback.
However, details on the Twitter handle or the Facebook page are not yet available.
This is not the first time the Islamabad Police has tried its hand at technology. In 2013, the police force implemented a GSM-based tool at police pickets for checking car registration details to recover stolen cars and catch suspects.
The monitoring system appeared to be quite successful in the beginning, but later the system went under the radar. Sources suggest it was put on the back burner after some of the cars it found to be stolen were in the possession of the city’s influential elites.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2014.
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ET are you alright? "The monitoring system appeared to be quite successful in the beginning, but later the system went under the radar. Sources suggest it was put on the back burner after some of the cars it found to be stolen were in the possession of the city’s influential elites".