Tackling crime: Significance of community policing stressed

Handbook on how to manage social disorder, crime launched

ISLAMABAD: Tackling crime and social disorder requires working together of the police and local community. 

This was stated by National Police Bureau (NPB) Gender Crime Cell Director Abbas Hussain Malik while speaking at the launch of a handbook on community policing organised by the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) here at a hotel on Wednesday.

Malik highlighted the significance of community policing in tackling the growing levels of crime.

The event, organised with the support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the European Union, was attended by a diverse audience comprising citizens from all walks of life.

Senior police officials, including Islamabad AIG Operations Asher Hameed, Azad Jammu and Kashmir AIG Faheem Ahmed Khan, Karachi DIG Crime Branch Azhar Rasheed Khan, K-P
SSP Investigation Abdul Rasheed Khan, Islamabad SP Crime Branch Zubair Sheikh and Rawalpindi DSP VIP Security Shamshad Akhtar shared their insights on the subject.

CPDI Programme Manager Bilal Saeed delivered a presentation to provide an overview of the handbook on community policing.

Saeed discussed the pros and cons of various community policing initiatives undertaken across the country, and expressed hope that police would  adopt the indigenised framework on community policing presented in the publication.

NPB Gender Crime Cell Deputy Director Mahreen Maqsood explained the various initiatives of the bureau currently under way, directed at uplifting the image of the police, and towards implementing community policing in the country.

She also expressed the possibility of collaborative efforts with the CPDI to take push for community policing in the country.

The speakers at the event were of the unanimous view that community policing must be implemented in the country, and the image of police must be corrected to strengthen police-community relations.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th,  2015.