Controlling crime: Week after CCPO vowed to close them, pickets increase

‘Number of permanent police pickets almost doubled in city’.

LAHORE:

The number of police pickets in the city has been increased over recent days, even though the police chief recently said that they would all be removed.

On June 12, Capital City Police Officer Ahmed Raza Tahir released a statement saying that all pickets throughout the city would be removed and that he had directed senior officers including SPs to leave their air-conditioned offices and go and work in the field.

However, sources in the city police said that on the orders of senior officers, the number of permanent pickets had been almost doubled in the city. In some sub divisions, the number of pickets has been increased from two to five while one has been added in others.

Several police officers said that pickets were ineffective at controlling crime, but they acted as a deterrence and gave people a sense of security since they resulted in a visible, active police presence.

A police officer said that such pickets had never yielded good results. “They are made to look effective on paper, but in reality there are very few arrests made at pickets. Senior officers are well aware of this,” said the officer, requesting anonymity.

A sub divisional police officer, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the mobile pickets established every day from 7 pm to 9:30 pm worked the same way as permanent pickets.

“They set up a barrier blocking at least half the road and then start stopping and checking vehicles. Snap checking is far more effective,” he said, adding that the police should instead roam around an area and pickets should not last more than half an hour.

A superintendent of police said that pickets for general hold up had been increased. Previously, he said, pickets used to be set up once a week. Now they had regularised them. “The criminals are aware by know where the pickets are set up. They’re only to please the bosses or to give people a false sense of security,” he said.

Model Town SP Awais Malik said that a new strategy would be devised with the approval of the senior superintendent of police for operations soon. He said that all pickets should be removed and they were being removed from his precincts. He said that the pickets were an inconvenience to motorists. He said that pickets were set up at 7pm because the rate of street crime surged at that time.

Iqbal Town SP Muntazir Mehdi said that removing all pickets at once would lead to a surge in crime so they should be removed gradually.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2011.