Statistics show dismal performance of Pindi police

Change-sheets filed in only 50% of cases during 10 months

RAWALPINDI: Despite the claims of the top officials on the reforms in the police department, the downturn in the performance of the investigation officers (IOs) of Rawalpindi police has been disclosed with the official report issued for the first 10 months of the current year.

The IOs remained unable to complete charge-sheets in almost half of the cases registered until October 2019, making it the worst performance during the last five years. This could also be cited as one of the reasons that the crime rate in the district has risen sharply during 2019.

The IOs say that they lacked resources to complete the investigation process within 14 days after apprehending a criminal as the law directs. They complained that most of the time, they have to ask the parties in the case to come along with the stationery items as the department did not provide them so. However, the law experts claim the reason to be otherwise and said that it was due to the alleged collusion between the police and the criminals.

Whatever the case may be, this has given a room to the criminals, charged with heinous crimes, for obtaining bails and abscond.

According to the statistics released by the district attorney office, as many as 16,892 cases were registered in all 30 police stations in the district until October 31 however the police submitted charge-sheets in the courts after completing the investigation in merely 8,380 cases. The probe into more than half 8,512 cases remained incomplete which ultimately benefitted the nominated suspects.

The data further disclosed that the police have labeled 800 of them as blind cases have and closed files while 672 were dismissed after declared fake.

The rate of producing charge-sheets also remained the lowest during the last five years as the police only produced 8,482 charge-sheets in the courts, despite the fact that it is bound to submit it within 15 days after registration of the case. The Rawalpindi police submitted 10,408 charge-sheets of 17,291 cases registered in 2015, 11,364 of 18,393 in 2016, 10,470 of 18,132 in 2017 and 8482 in 16,950 in 2018. This practice has prolonged the disposing of cases and a delay in justice for the victims.

Further, Sadiqabad police station topped the list in terms of registration of cases with 1,190 cases during the first ten months of the current year however it produced the charge-sheets in only 522 of them.

The Airport police presented charge sheets in 419 of 1,111 cases it registered, Saddar police in 381 of 908 cases whereas the only women police station, which registered 61 cases, produced the charge-sheets in just 12 of them.

Meanwhile, the investigation officers (IOs) are of the view that the lack of resources was a huge hindrance in carrying out investigation in the proper manner as they were not given any funds for interrogation using modern methods, stationery items and searching the suspects and they were unable to afford thousands of rupees on their own. They said that they sometimes had to ask either of the parties in the case to bring stationery items with them including plain papers, pens, etc. They demanded that they should only be questioned about the timely submission of challans when they were provided all facilities.

The senior lawyers including Masood Shah, Sameena Bukhari, Najaful Hasnain, and Raheela Awaan turned down the excuse on the part of IOs by saying that the delay was caused owing to the alleged collusion between the police and the criminal elements in most of the cases. They recalled that it was mandatory for the police to complete the charge-sheets within 14 days of the arrest however taking almost ten months for it was not a practical excuse. The lawyers expressed that it was a big question mark on the performance of the IOs.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2019.