Rescue 15: Few lines, prank calls leave complainants helpless

Police say large number of bogus calls responsible for delay in response.

LAHORE: An inadequate number of telephone lines at the Rescue 15 police helpline has limited its utility. Citizens say that the helpline numbers remain inaccessible for long periods as all numbers are busy.

Aslam Sheikh, a Model Town resident, told The Express Tribune that a few weeks ago he had to call the Rescue 15 helpline to report a robbery. His call, he said, got through after 20 minutes of dialing and redialing. Still, he said, no one was sent to his place and he had to make repeated calls to ‘persuade’ the police to help him.

Aslam Ali, an Allama Iqbal Town resident, had a similar experience two weeks ago. He said that his call got through after a long wait. He was calling to lodge a motorcycle theft complaint.

Majid Saleem, a Defence Housing Authority resident, said that he had had to call Rescue 15 helpline on several occasions. He said he never got connected at the first attempt.

After a suicide attack on the Rescue 15 building at Queens Road on May 27, 2009, the facility was moved to Qurban Lines. The number of telephone lines at the new facility was 18, just over one-third the 50 at the office destroyed by the terrorists. The shifting, said Superintendent of Police Muntazir Mehdi, affected the performance.

He hoped that things would return to normal once a new office with 50 telephone lines was operational at Qila Gujar Singh by the end of December. “Right now, a manual complaint registration system is in place,” he said, adding, they could not monitor things like number of calls attended by an operator or the numbers who call most frequently. He said that a computerised setup at the new facility would help keep updated record of calls received everyday. The new system, he said, would also allow the operators to block prank callers.

Sub Inspector Yaseen, a clerk at the Rescue 15 office, said that more than 25,000 calls were received at the facility everyday. “Only a fraction are genuine,” he asserted, “of the total, around 400 make it to the coamplaint registration phase and by the end only 20 to 30 turn out to be genuine.”

The Rescue 15 helpline remained busy because of these prank calls, said Sub Inspector Raufur Rehman, an operator at Rescue 15. He said that the people who made bogus calls should realise that it was a serious business and could seriously harm others with actual problems. “The only way out for us is to disconnect these calls,” he said, adding that on occasions he forwards the number to the police for action against the caller.

Inspector Rana Waheed, a shift in charge, said that there was no system in place currently to hold prank callers accountable.

Faced with a lot of workload, he said, the police had to prioritise crimes like abductions, dacoities and shootings. He admitted that sometimes thefts and minor robberies got ignored.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2011.