Personal hearing: Too busy or too lazy?
SHOs no longer under orders to spend time at station attending to public.
LAHORE:
In the absence of instructions from senior officers, the city’s station house officers (SHOs) are not personally hearing complaints from citizens, leading to delays in the registration of first information reports (FIRs).
Several SHOs told The Express Tribune that they simply did not have time to personally hear grievances at the station because they were always busy with various duties. The senior superintendent of police (SSP) for operations said that guidelines were being considered so that SHOs would have to spend four to six hours per week attending to the public.
When Pervez Rathore was in charge of Lahore Police as capital city police officer, he mandated that SHOs must be available at their stations for two hours every day (at first from 4pm to 6pm, later changed to 8am to 10am) to hear complaints from members of the public. After Rathore’s tenure as the city’s police chief ended, Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Rao Sardar Ali Khan issued orders that the SHOs be available to deal with the public from 4pm to 7pm.
Presently, SHOs are not under orders to set aside team to hear citizens’ grievances. A senior police official told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that people were forced to travel back and forth to the police station to meet the SHO so that they could lodge complaints. In practice, an FIR is not registered at a police station without the SHO’s approval. “The SHO is usually sitting and relaxing in his retiring room and leaves the complainants to a sub inspector or muharrar,” he said.
The official said that though the previous system, under which SHOs were required to be physically present and visible at the station for two to three hours every day, hadn’t been followed that strictly, it was more helpful to the public than the situation today.
He said that in many crimes, a case couldn’t be registered until a sub divisional police officer or a superintendent of police had conducted an inquiry, and it was the SHO’s job to report the case to the senior officers. These included offences outlined in Sections 498F, 468, 471, 420, 406 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code and 29 of the Telegraph Act.
Several SHOs, when asked, maintained that they were forced to spend their time on security duties, protocol duties and responding to Rescue 15 calls. “When can we hear public grievances?” asked one officer. “I would like them to issue us a timetable. I’d far prefer sitting at the station dealing with the public than performing mindless duties.”
SSP (Operations) Shaukat Abbas said the absence of SHOs was a legitimate public concern and that SHOs would be told to spend four to six hours at their stations in the next week to address the problem.
The SSP wasn’t convinced that the SHOs did not have enough time. “When you ask them, they usually say they can’t be at the police station as they have security duty somewhere or they have to be in court,” he said. “We’re devising a system so we can monitor which court hearings SHOs are attending. That way we can check if they’re bluffing.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 11th, 2011.
In the absence of instructions from senior officers, the city’s station house officers (SHOs) are not personally hearing complaints from citizens, leading to delays in the registration of first information reports (FIRs).
Several SHOs told The Express Tribune that they simply did not have time to personally hear grievances at the station because they were always busy with various duties. The senior superintendent of police (SSP) for operations said that guidelines were being considered so that SHOs would have to spend four to six hours per week attending to the public.
When Pervez Rathore was in charge of Lahore Police as capital city police officer, he mandated that SHOs must be available at their stations for two hours every day (at first from 4pm to 6pm, later changed to 8am to 10am) to hear complaints from members of the public. After Rathore’s tenure as the city’s police chief ended, Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Rao Sardar Ali Khan issued orders that the SHOs be available to deal with the public from 4pm to 7pm.
Presently, SHOs are not under orders to set aside team to hear citizens’ grievances. A senior police official told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that people were forced to travel back and forth to the police station to meet the SHO so that they could lodge complaints. In practice, an FIR is not registered at a police station without the SHO’s approval. “The SHO is usually sitting and relaxing in his retiring room and leaves the complainants to a sub inspector or muharrar,” he said.
The official said that though the previous system, under which SHOs were required to be physically present and visible at the station for two to three hours every day, hadn’t been followed that strictly, it was more helpful to the public than the situation today.
He said that in many crimes, a case couldn’t be registered until a sub divisional police officer or a superintendent of police had conducted an inquiry, and it was the SHO’s job to report the case to the senior officers. These included offences outlined in Sections 498F, 468, 471, 420, 406 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code and 29 of the Telegraph Act.
Several SHOs, when asked, maintained that they were forced to spend their time on security duties, protocol duties and responding to Rescue 15 calls. “When can we hear public grievances?” asked one officer. “I would like them to issue us a timetable. I’d far prefer sitting at the station dealing with the public than performing mindless duties.”
SSP (Operations) Shaukat Abbas said the absence of SHOs was a legitimate public concern and that SHOs would be told to spend four to six hours at their stations in the next week to address the problem.
The SSP wasn’t convinced that the SHOs did not have enough time. “When you ask them, they usually say they can’t be at the police station as they have security duty somewhere or they have to be in court,” he said. “We’re devising a system so we can monitor which court hearings SHOs are attending. That way we can check if they’re bluffing.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 11th, 2011.