New tactics: Police establish ‘special unit’ to investigate crime

SIU to investigate cases of car theft, and crimes of person and property

ISLAMABAD: The capital police claim to be coming down hard on criminals as they are going to establish a ‘Special Investigating Unit (SIU)’ which will enable them to maintain a database of criminals.

The police have decided to revamp the Crime Investigating Agency (CIA) and merge it into the SIU, which would help them arrest criminals involved in various crimes, said CIA Superintendent of Police Capt (retd) Muhammad Ilyas.

“The basic objective of the revamping is to reduce crime which is high in the city,” said Ilyas, who recently took charge of CIA.

The official explained that under the umbrella of SIU, different units would be functional. He added that a profile of criminals would be made, fingerprint database of all criminals would be compiled and a crime map would be available which will help the police officers trace any incident in their respective areas.

The official said so far records of 18,996 criminals have been compiled with their complete history. Similarly, under the umbrella of SIU, a Google map would be made to identify locations where different crimes take place to help police officers.

The official explained that the SIU will be divided into three sections: property crime, person crime, and car-lifting crime, and each section will be headed by a DSP-ranked officer.

DSP Bashir Noon will head the property crime unit which will deal with cases of burglary and dacoity.

The person crime section will cover kidnapping and homicide cases and will be headed by DSP Naeem Malik while the car-lifting cell will deal with cases related to vehicles’ theft and be headed by Inspector Fayyaz Ranja.

Currently, CIA is dealing with all such cases as well those of cheque dishonour, land-grabbing, and other petty crimes.

But cases of cheque dishonour, land grabbing and other low-level crimes were transferred to respective police stations as CIA officers were making money through these cases, explained the official, who took the initiative on the direction of Inspector General Police Tahir Alam Khan.

He said so far over 150 cases related to petty crimes have been transferred to the relevant police stations.

The official hoped that the SIU’s formation will help bring down crime in the city.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2015.