Protect the public: ‘The police are sleeping, the court is not’

Judge admonishes DIG, orders him to arrest 22,554 proclaimed offenders.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday ordered the Operations DIG to submit a detailed report about proclaimed offenders of Lahore by the third week of January.

Justice Rauf Ahmad Sheikh issued the order while hearing a petition filed by Mohammad Ali who submitted that proclaimed offenders Shafique, Mazhar, Iffat Naeem and Haroon Aziz, allegedly involved in a fraudulent deal regarding his 12 kanals land, had not been arrested.

Justice Sheikh had summoned DIG Ghulam Mahmood Dogar to ask why the police had failed to arrest 22,554 proclaimed offenders who were still at large.

Admonishing the DIG, the judge said it was astonishing and alarming that a large number of provincial offenders were operating in the city and the police was not arresting them.

“The police are sleeping but the court is not and it will provide protection to citizens if the police fails,” Justice Sheikh said adding that people were asking that what the judges were doing for them.

The DIG undertook to carry out an effective campaign to arrest the proclaimed offenders. The judge said that several SHOs in the city were running gambling dens. The judge said that if the SHOs were not performing their duties, they need to be discharged.

The judge ordered the DIG to submit a report about proclaimed offenders.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2011.