Common goals: Community policing policy urged to engage residents

Participants at seminar stress need to bridge the gap between law enforcers, citizens.

PESHAWAR: During a day-long dialogue on community policing, speakers on Tuesday stressed reducing the gap between the police and residents.

Titled ‘Dialogue on Developing Community Policing Policy’, the event was arranged at a hotel by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) police and Aitebar, a UK-funded programme aimed to ensure swift justice in matters related to protecting the public. The event was aimed at engaging representatives of society to seek their input on community policing and to agree on a feasible model to effectively meet the needs of K-P’s residents.

Addressing the participants, Secretary Home and Tribal Affairs Syed Akhtar Ali Shah said the province was directly and severely affected in the war against terror. Law enforcement agencies bore the brunt of the onslaught, he added.



“The distance between the police and people is an issue that needs to be addressed on a priority basis,” Shah stressed, adding lack of human resources, ‘thana’ culture and a shortage of adequate resources haunt the police in its struggle to cope with militancy. Shah said the community and police must interact to solve problems by helping each other out on the ground.

Additional Inspector General Investigation Shaukat Hayat said the law and order situation along with lack of opportunities to engage citizens were the prime reasons for the gap between the citizens and police.

“We should study the jirga [system] and include it in the legal system, because local communities are familiar with it,” said Hayat.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2014.