LAHORE: The rising crime in Punjab necessities reforms like the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) police have recently introduced to improve conviction rate, as the existing system in the province seems inadequate to provide relief to the public at large.

The ICT police have carried out a comparative study of the rising crime trend in provinces including Punjab and Sindh.

The study has showed a massive surge in the crime rate reported during the first eight months of 2022 and of 2021.

According to the official report/data, Punjab’s all the divisions including Lahore city have reported a surge in heinous crimes including murder, kidnapping for ransom, gang rape, dacoity, robbery, etc.

It showed all the divisions of the Punjab police have reported 34,189 cases in the above-mentioned crimes since January to August this year while this number was 18,967 during the same period in 2021, showing a visible difference of 15,219 cases.

Islamabad police have taken a slew of initiatives to strengthen police stations

The report said 2,832 people were allegedly murdered in Punjab in first eight months of 2022 as compared to 2,684 reported during same period of last month.

The gang rape cases also witnessed an increase as was evident from the data that suggested that Punjab reported 168 such incidents in first eight months of this year which were 116 during the same period of last year.

The province also witnessed an increase of 14,943 incidents (30,028) of robberies during the same period in 2022 against 15,085 in the first eight months of last year.

The increase in crime rate in Punjab has reflected that the existing police system requires some reforms like the ICT police introduced recently by shifting its focus towards the police stations of the city.

Under a paradigm shift, the ICT police have taken a slew of initiatives to strengthen a police station, a basic unit of any police organisation which has long been neglected in several police reforms introduced in the past.

Though the provinces have already incorporated some schemes/reforms, most of them introduced by the ICT police were said to be new ones and could be helpful to improve conviction rate in Punjab which was not more than 10 per cent of the total registered cases.

The police experts believe that the ICT police’s attempt to introduce specialisation in the decades-old system would help improve service delivery, as they were triangulation of three important statutes including Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), Police Order 2002 and guidelines of the courts.

An official privy to the development said the ICT police have specially focused on crime against women, children, transgender people and those registered under blasphemy laws.

Inspector General of ICT police Akbar Nasir Khan has issued a new standing order (SO) for all the police officers, units and police stations in this regard to follow it in letter and spirit.

According to the SO, the ICT police strengthened the police station by establishing new Capital Investigation Branch (CIB), Investigation Technical Experts Units (ITEUs), Criminal Record Unit (CRU), Crime Scene Unit (CSU), Finger Print Unit (FPU), Digital Expert Unit (DEU), Legal Experts Unit (LEU), Court Compliance Unit (CCU), Robbery, Dacoity Unity (RDU), Homicide Investigation Unit (HIU), Special Sexual Offences Investigation Unit (SSOIU), Juvenile and Gender Protection Unit (JGPU) and Anti-Blasphemy Unit (ABU).

It has also defined the role of the heads of the above-mentioned units and other members through the standard operating procedure (SOP).

The official is of the view that the division of the ICT police organisation into small operational units is a major component of new reforms.The official source said the ICT police have given incharge investigation officers of all the police stations a status of station house officers (SHOs) while posting under his command two sub-inspectors (SIs) as heads of investigation and operation wings.

For the police high-ups, a police officer who is well-versed in investigation matters can better deliver as SHO as compared to the official who in his/her career never served in the investigation wing, he said.

The two SIs under the command of the SHO would be called as incharge admin and incharge of operation wing police. The ICT police have defined, in detail, their role.

Under the reforms, the official said, the SHO will also be called as the chief investigation officer.

Similarly, the deputy superintendent rank police officer who is serving as sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) has been given the status of the divisional police officer (DPO) to head the police stations under his jurisdiction.

Following the reforms, the federal police authorities also issued new detailed guidelines to eradicate the culture of torture in custody, identification parade of a suspect, police raids for the arrests of the suspects, for the investigations of the registered cases lodged under blasphemy laws.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2022