Maintenance of standardised beat books now mandatory for police stations

Each book will have SOPs for various policing duties and info on location of important sites .

LAHORE: The maintenance of a standardised beat book carrying standard operating procedures (SOPs) for various policing tasks and location of important sites like worship places has been made mandatory for all police stations in the province, The Express Tribune has learnt. 

A notification issued by Inspector General of Police Mushtaq Ahmad Sukehra directs the capital city police officer and all regional and district police officers to ensure that the book is maintained and regularly updated.

IGP Sukhera told The Tribune that the authorities concerned had also been directed to arrange refresher courses for beat officers to ensure that they could maintain the book without any difficulty.

A senior police officer told the Tribune copies of the new standardised beat book would soon be sent to all police stations. He said the maintenance of the book was expected to begin, both on paper and online, by the end of the month.



Beat books for all police stations of the province would be available online as well. SSP Kashif Kanju said services of computer operators had been hired for data entry so that muharrars or field officials were not burdened with any additional workload. A training programme for computer operators from across the province has already been arranged.

A copy of the standardised book available with The Tribune shows that it would have SOPs for gazetted officers, officials and volunteers on patrolling duties in villages (thekery pehra or watchman system) and cities (chokidara nizam), beat officers, and for other officers on patrolling parties. The book also has SOPs on the arrest of hardened criminals.

The SOP for patrolling in villages prescribes that volunteers should be recruited for night duties. It mandates gazetted officials to select volunteers for the purpose and requires them to keep a register with record of all volunteers for every village under their jurisdiction. It requires the officials to ensure that volunteers use only licensed weapons and keep a torch and a whistle during patrolling duties. It prohibits the volunteers from smoking during patrolling.

The SOP also seeks establishment of pickets manned by armed volunteers around every village.

For the urban areas, the SDPOs have been directed to make separate protection and peace committees in their areas. They have been asked to seek cooperation from influential people in their areas for the purpose.

The SOPs ask the police authorities to treat constables and other junior officials with respect. It says that their duties should be between five and eight hours a day.

In the data section, the book requires entries about known crime pockets including drug peddling spots. It seeks information on the location of worship places including mosques, churches, imambargahs and Ahmedi or Qadiyani worship places. Other important sites which are required to be identified in the book are banks, markets, petrol pumps, jewellery shops, rest houses and red light areas.

The beat officers are required to keep lists of hardened criminals including their addresses and likely hideouts. They are also required to keep information on people affiliated with banned religious outfits.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2015.