The standing committee on the home department will submit its 95-page report to the Sindh Assembly and it will be up to it to take it forward. Of the most startling reality checks was the recommendation that Karachi's police need to be enhanced 73%.
The report says that there must be a stop to the frequent transfers and postings of station house officers (SHOs) who run police stations. The government needs to also fix the tenure of ranked officers such as SSPs, SPs, DSPs and SHOs. The frequency of the movement of officials is one of the reasons behind the poor performance of the police. "We have initially suggested fixing six to seven months as the average tenure of an SSP, three to four months for a DSP and a minimum of six months for SHOs," said MPA Abdul Moid, who is one of the members of the standing committee.
He acknowledged that the police were working under stress due to political pressure and that hardly any SHO is at one place for one month. "We have suggested giving the police full authority and power otherwise crime will never be controlled," the MPA said.
The committee was tasked with preparing the report after a debate on law and order during a 2009 session in the house. Its chairman and eight members held more than forty sessions, visited different parts of Karachi and other districts and met police officials, law experts, members of civil society organisations, writers, intellectuals and journalists to solicit their opinion.
Sources quoted from the report in which its members expressed their annoyance over the number of police in Karachi, which is the capital of Sindh and the economic hub of Pakistan. Karachi is woefully short with only a total of 27,865 policemen compared to 30,916 in Lahore and 47,800 in London, a far smaller city. To make it worse, more than 7,000 men in Karachi are on VVIP duty.
As a result, the police-to-people ratio is completely off the mark. "There is one police official deployed for around 534 people, therefore the government should start appointing personnel so it comes to at least one cop for 220 persons," sources said.
The police are also extremely short on the materials they need to fight crime whether they are vehicles, arms or ammunition. "We have a deficit of 22,856 sub-machine guns and 99,931 0.38 bore guns and 3,433 tear gas shells."
While the committee has described Karachi's violence as "ethnic" and of a war over resources in different areas, it has not come up with any concrete suggestions and remedies to the complex matter. Meanwhile, all the lawmakers who are members of the standing committee have suggested that the Sindh High Court's decision to ban jirgas must be followed as they are the main reason behind tribal clashes in Sindh.
Sindh is allowed to have a total of 98,652 police personnel but only 87,240 posts have been filled in the entire province. This means 11,412 posts are vacant.
The report also mentions that the police department should vacate all private buildings, amenity plots and even schools and hostels where police stations have been set up. "Proper land and buildings should be allotted for police stations," it said.
There is also a recommendation that parts of the laws on possession be amended to enhance the punishment for anyone found with an illegal weapon.
Talking to The Express Tribune, MPA Rehan Zafar who is a member of the standing committee, said he was disappointed. "This kind of effort and reports would not make a difference because they have already proposed many laws and submitted reports, all in vain." For his part, Anwar Mahar, the chairman of the standing committee, said their job was to make the laws and it was the government's job to implement them.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2011.
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