Committee report: ‘Only one policeman for every 574 people in Karachi’

Sindh Assembly standing committee puts forth police inefficiency as one reason for the city's worsening situation.

KARACHI:

There is only one policeman for every 574 people in Karachi, compared to one for 291 residents of Lahore and one for 241 residents of Delhi.

Given this ratio, police inefficiency is one of the reasons put forward by a Sindh Assembly standing committee on home for the city’s worsening law and order situation.

The committee members deliberated for several hundred hours over a period of almost three years and conducted 57 interviews to come up with a set of recommendations to improve police performance. The report was released on Wednesday.

The committee noted that the police often submit a weak challan in courts that ultimately works to the advantage of the accused.

In the backdrop of murders of property dealers, the committee recommended that a regulatory authority be established to stop foreigners from buying or renting property illegally, it said.

The efficiency of police is marred by frequent transfers. According to Hyderabad Region’s police, the average tenure of a supervisory police officer was six months while the station house officer remains in office for only 77 days.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2013.