The Rawalpindi Police investigation teams’ performance is disappointing as they have failed to present complete challans in cases of serious offenses during the first five months of 2021.
During this period, 30 police stations of Rawalpindi registered 13,323 first information reports (FIRs) while complete challans of only 3,755 cases were submitted. This means challans of 9,568 FIRs are still pending.
By law, the police must file challans for cases within two weeks. However, the challans of serious cases are not presented in court, as the accused usually flee after obtaining bail.
Of the submitted challans, the police filed 758 temporary challans and 185 cases were dismissed after they were declared fake. The police could make no progress in 18 cases.
The complete challans submitted by the police mostly pertain to minor cases like gambling, selling or consumption of alcohol, kite flying and drug trafficking, etc. Complete challans submitted by police of serious cases like murder, robbery, theft, kidnapping, rape, abduction are much less, speaking volumes about their competence and integrity. As a result, the accused in these serious cases get bail from the courts.
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This correspondent was told by several aggrieved citizens they had observed that the concerned investigating officers often collude with the suspects and abet them by resorting to the use of technical loops in submitting complete challan of cases. This is done in such a manner that it almost never comes to the notice of the higher police officials and benefits the offender.
The district and session judge has also expressed frustration over the continuous delay in challans in an anti-crime meeting.
The lawyers pursuing criminal cases who identified themselves as Masood Shah, Najaf Al Hasnain, Sabteen Bukhari and Punjab Bar Council (PBC) member Asad Abbasi told The Express Tribune that under the law, the police are required to file a challan within two weeks.
They demanded that scientific methods of investigation should be employed considering the spike in crime rate. The lawyers also suggested that the period for submitting full challan should be extended to a month so that the police can conduct investigations and ensure submission of challans. For this purpose, the provincial assembly needs to amend the concerned section of criminal law, they added.
Various Investigation officers (IOs) told The Express Tribune admitted to delay in challans but contended that it occurs for several reasons.
The IOs said that the challans of heinous cases cannot be presented in courts until complete reports from the forensic lab, which is in Lahore, are received. As such a forensic lab should be established in every division of Punjab.
The IOs also said that investigations require raids to apprehend criminals while they do not receive a rupee to meet the cost of stationery. They added that IOs even have to pay for sending forensic evidence to Lahore from their own pocket.
They said they could not spend their salary on these expenses and are left with no option but to ask for money for this purpose from the suspect and the plaintiff.
Moreover, the senior IOs were of the view that the existing British-era criminal investigation system has become obsolete and there immediate need to modernise it or the guilty will continue to benefit.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 1st, 2021.
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