Telephones stop ringing at police stations as officials cop out of paying bills

KARACHI: If you’ve been calling a police station and your call is not being received, chances are that the telephone at the station is out of order. Years of unpaid phone bills by a number of police stations across the city have accumulated so much so that the Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL) has disconnected their telephone lines.

“I spotted three [suspicious looking] men outside my house around one month ago after which I called the Baloch Colony police station a number of times. However, they did not respond. Finally, the men [came and] robbed my house,” said Aziz Baloch, a resident of Manzoor Colony.

He said that he had repeatedly called “15”, but his calls had been left unattended. It was later that he found out that the police station’s phone was out of order.

Baloch is one of the many residents of Karachi who have been unsuccessful in trying to contact the police in times of need. Officials at a number of police stations said that despite registering numerous complaints with their administration, their phones had not been reconnected.

“We owe PTCL Rs0.3 million, which is why our telephone has been out of order for the last two years,” Baloch Colony Station House Officer (SHO) Hyder Ali Zaidi informed The Express Tribune.

Officials at police stations have been asked to acquire wireless pre-paid telephone services and manage the bills themselves, said Zaidi. “The bill for this service comes down to Rs100 to Rs200 per day so it is not a problem and we can manage it,” he added.

A large number of officials, however, complained of the fact that they had to pay for the service out of their out pockets since the landline phones have been disconnected. Some of them also said that they had to use their personal mobile phones to place calls in emergencies.

“There was a [police] encounter in our area and there was no balance left in our WorldCall set. All the balance in my mobile phone was spent on making official calls,” said a Defence police official.

Finance Assistant Inspector General (AIG) Dost Ali Baloch, however, did not hold the same opinion as the officials working for him. He attributed the disconnection of landline phones to the problems that arose due to development works across the city. He admitted that while the phones had been disconnected in some cases due to long overdue unpaid bills, most telephone lines were cut because of “the development works undertaken by the district government”. He told The Express Tribune that the police officials were now better equipped with latest technology, such as mobile phones and wireless systems of communication.

“Wireless sets are not easy to maintain as their call frequency is not good. The battery cannot be recharged during long power outages either, so the sets are power off more often than not,” an SHO revealed. “The complaints of the people are genuine. Landlines must be provided to police stations,” he said. Landline phones at four out of five police stations have been out of order for the past two years, a sub-inspector at the New Karachi police base revealed.  “People mostly call the base to get numbers of SHOs. It is a real problem for us.”

“We have temporarily provided wireless sets to three police stations in the area and have written letters to the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) to get the landlines restored,” said Clifton TPO Tariq Razzaque Dhareejo.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2010.