Rescue 15 helpline: Record to encourage police to believe callers

DIG orders 15 to maintain a record after calls wrongly reported as ‘bogus’.

LAHORE:

City police stations will now be required to maintain a record of all calls received on Rescue 15 helpline and action taken on them.

The directive was issued by DIG (Operations) Rao Sardar Ali Khan on Thursday after majority of complaints reported as bogus by the police stations were found to be substantive.

Most of the calls reported as bogus in this manner involved robbery and snatching incidents.

An official at the DIG (Operations) office said that they had a separate record of all calls made to the 15 helpline. He said the record was meant to verify the report submitted by the police stations. He said they found out about the understatement of complaints after officials at the reader branch made follow up calls to complainants. “Most of them said they had reported a crime but no action was taken by the police,” he said.

According to the directives, the station house officers are required to verify all calls, lodge FIRs for the ones found genuine and report others as bogus. The Divisional SPs have been directed to regularly review the record book and report the performance of police stations under their jurisdiction to the DIG (Operations).

Police officials said that on average about 15 to 25 FIRs were being registered for motorcycle thefts. They said that in Civil Lines precinct there had been more than 80 snatching incidents this month. They said the number in April last year was 60.

They said 140 snatching incidents were reported in Allama Iqbal Town this month. The number last year was 90.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2011.