Security measures: Banks must improve safety or face closure

DIG instructs banks to deploy more guards, build bunkers outside branches.

LAHORE:

The police have instructed banks to hire more guards and tighten security at all their branches in the city or face fines and possibly closure, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Rao Sardar Ali Khan visited various banks on Thursday to inspect their security arrangements, following a recent spate of robberies. The officer found inadequate arrangements and poorly trained guards, police sources said. He told the banks that they were easy targets for robbers.

The DIG instructed the banks to constitute bunkers for their guards, for their safety as well as for deterrence. He also told them to increase the number of guards stationed outside each branch.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Lahore’s police chief Ahmad Raza Tahir had told police officials to act against bank robbers and sent out instructions to bank administrations to improve security arrangements.

Police stations on Thursday were instructed by wireless to make sure that the extra security was in place at banks. Failing this, the bank manager or the official in charge of security could be punished under the Punjab Shops and Establishment (Security) Ordinance of 1999 by one month in prison or a Rs15,000 fine. Subsequent failure to comply with the extra security requirement could be punished by closure of the branch.

Police officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that at most banks, the guards were less for security and more for customer service like saluting visitors or opening the gate.

“They are there as a show piece,” said one official. “They don’t even know how to use the guns they are holding, which is why they are only given two or three cartridges. I’ve seen guards carrying pump actions with the pins taken off.

It’s not even an appropriate gun for the combat environment they have to operate in. They are given these guns only to scare people with.”

Other officials said that each police station was meant to maintain a record in a Register No 17 of security guards that work in their jurisdictions, but most bank managers did not inform the police about their guards, so records were not being kept.

Bank officials said that they agreed that enhancing security was very important and that if the police instructed them to do so, they would shut down their branches while security was being upgraded. They said that since each branch followed a policy set centrally, they awaited instructions from high-ups in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2011.