Addressing complaints: Police set to recruit 100 assistants

The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by IGP Sukhera

LAHORE: The police decided on Sunday to recruit 100 citizens as senior station assistants to timely address complaints, register FIRs and computerise station records.

A statement issued on Sunday said the decision was taken in a meeting held at the Central Police Office. Inspector General (IGP) Mushtaq Ahmed Sukhera chaired the meeting. 20 male senior station assistants, 60 male station assistants and 20 women station assistants would be recruited on contract basis under the project. They would work at stations to address complaints in civilian clothes. It was also decided in the meeting to fund the project from the department’s annual budget. It was decided that appointments would be made through advertisements in national newspapers. This project would initially be run as a pilot that would be extended to other districts province-wide if it proved successful. The project is scheduled to start in January 2015.

Applicants are required to have passed a National Testing Service test, possess an intermediate certificate and have three years of experience in information technology. They will be paid Rs32,000 as basic salary. The assistants will be taught the basics of law and policing during a six-week training programme. Officials said the IGP had decided to place educate people in stations as readers as they usually happened to be the first official a complainant had to deal with. Officials said the assistants would ensure that they were politely greeted. They said they would follow the same line of command as readers. Officials said they would be answerable to the SHO) They said the assistants would enter complaints in the records. Officials said the SHOs would be held accountable if they failed to act on the complaints and register FIRs.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2014.