Rawalpindi Police. PHOTO: AFP
“I will ensure implementation of proactive policing,” City Police Officer (CPO) Ahsan Younus said addressing a meet the press gathering to elucidate the police policy guidelines under him on Thursday.
The top cop of the city said that the Rawalpindi police were facing a plethora of challenges which he would try to resolve at earliest, adding that the top priority would be given to urgent registration of the first information report (FIR).
Registration of a criminal act was first step to make police trace the criminals. Police could not trace the criminals until the crime was recorded in form of an FIR, he explained. He added that it was for the same reason that some 1,356 FIRs in property-related cases, pending for six months, were registered during the past three days.
CPO told that as soon as he assumed the charge, the staff discouraged him by saying that he was about to face huge pressure due to the high crime rate in Rawalpindi.
Explaining the strategy to overcome it, he told that the police stations had been distributed category-wise with the ones with higher crime rates separated from others. CPO Younus informed that the areas with high crime rates had been marked as the ‘crime pockets’ and added that it would be the policy of Rawalpindi police to chase down the bigger criminal elements. The official said that the Rawalpindi police would implement on the proactive policing now.
He asserted that even in the drug cases, the police would go after the culprits rather than the victims. Talking about the shortage of resources faced by the police department, he expressed that only three police stations in Rawalpindi were equipped with two mobiles each while he would ensure the provision of all required resources.
CPO rejected the claims of a shortage of manpower and said that the police did not face any such problem. He told that the police personnel working as sanitary workers in the houses of high police officials had been deployed back to the police stations.
The official claimed that the standard of investigation would be brought at par while the new standard operating procedures (SOPs) would be launched within the next ten days.
Regarding the reforms in the police stations, Younus said that a crime chart would be displayed at every police station while each of them would prepare a check-list of all registered FIRs along with an advisory for the applicants.
Commenting on the method to be followed for arresting a suspect, the official told that an arrest form would be launched in which the investigation officer would have to write a concrete reason for arresting a suspect. The document would then be referred to the circle officer for endorsement while the same method would be followed for carrying out raids, he added.
Turning down the orgainsation of khuli kutcheries that was regular practice in the recent past, CPO told that a comprehensive system would be developed to check the progress of the police officials assigned for addressing a particular complaint.
Answering a question whether an action would be taken against the police officials on the non-registration of FIRs in such huge numbers despite multiple review conferences held at Inspector General (IG) office, CPO said that he had two options of either suspending all the station house officers (SHOs) or proceeding ahead by marking out the problems in the system and he chose the latter.
Younus said that his vision for the future was clear and assured that the accountability process within the department would be carried out in a transparent manner.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2019.
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