Crime Range: New investigation wing to work like AVCC

Senior police officers will be relieved from court appearances.

KARACHI: Deputy Inspector General South Commander Shaukat, who is expected to become the next Additional IG Traffic, says the new investigation wing of the police, Crime Range, would deal with cases specifically sent by DIG-level officers.

“Since the system of having separate investigation wings [under the Police Order 2002] was abolished, junior officers like inspectors were dealing with high-profile cases and were appearing before the high courts and Supreme Court to explain the investigation, something honestly speaking, they are not capable of doing,” said Shaukat.

In the new system, an officer of the rank of superintendent would now look into such cases. According to the home department notice, SSP Niaz Ahmed Khosa has been posted to the east, SSP Khurram Waris the west and SP Arshad Kamal Kiyani to the south.

Ever since the investigations wings were abolished, Khosa and Waris have been sitting at home after giving up their old posts of SSP East investigations and SP Orangi town, respectively. The Crime Range is not expected to deal with every case, only the so-called high-profile ones. “Actually, one of the main problems since the investigation wings were abolished was that our senior officers, including the IG and Additional IGs, were being dragged to court each time a high-profile case would come up,” explained Khosa.

“Now with the Crime Range set up, the SP rank officer would give the police version to the courts and supervise the cases,” he said. Khosa added that the nature of the work and cases expected to be forwarded with the approval of the IG or Additional IG or DIG, would more or less be the same as those given to the Anti-Violent Crime Cell.

Apart from the Crime Range, there are at least four specialised units working under the Sindh police force structure. The Crime Investigation Department comes directly under the Inspector General Police Sindh. The Criminal Investigation Agency comes under the currently vacant slot of Additional IG Karachi. The newly formed Crime Branch is under the direct supervision of SSP Farooq Awan and the fourth one is the Anti-Violent Crime Cell. While the CID and CIA mostly deal specifically with counter-terrorism and anti-extremism cases, the AVCC and CB have, for now, limited their roles to cracking high-profile murders, target killings and kidnapping for ransom cases.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2011.