LAHORE: The Punjab Police chief has granted approval to raise ‘security division of 5,000 personnel’ mostly consisting of retired/ex-servicemen in the provincial capital to discharge multiple general/security duties, sparing the police station staff to discharge the core functions, mainly focusing on street crime.

The new security force would consist of retired/ex-servicemen, mostly from the Pakistan Army.

According to official claims, the deployment of the newly hired force would ease the burden on the police station staff/personnel, enabling them to discharge their core functions they were vested under Police Rules 1934.

An official claims the new force, comprising the ‘already trained human resource,’ will also help reduce the burden on the national exchequer as the hiring of young police personnel is costing the Punjab government heavily in the current financial crunch.

He says Inspector General of Police Dr Usman Anwar has granted approval to raise the new force in a meeting with Lahore police higher-ups at the Central Police Office a couple of days back.

Under the plan, the official adds, the deployment will be made from the pool of newly hired 5,000 police force for the specialised duties like VIP movements/personalities, cricket matches, national census, polio programmes, Raiwind congregations, annual religious festivals, judicial duties etc.

He says the Lahore police high command is also working separately on a scheme to withdraw the police personnel from the ‘unauthorised duties/deployments’ to increase the strength of the personnel at the police stations.

Plan to raise new hired force for extra duties like VVIP movement, cricket matches etc

While sharing multiple proposals in this respect, the Lahore police officers informed the IGP that they were struggling to get multiple assignments done from the staff of the 84 police stations of the city.

They told him that the public and the police station staff had been paying a heavy cost in the form of rising street crime and faulty investigations while deploying the policemen against ‘unauthorised duties’ for the last many decades.

The official says the deployment of police force from police stations to other miscellaneous assignments is not only a violation of the Police Rules 1934 that bar it from discharging such assignments but also causing public to suffer due to the chronic shortage of the staff at the police stations.

Giving an example in this respect, he says, these days, only 9,000 police personnel are managing 84 police stations of the city and this number is insufficient to address the issues like crime fighting.

About the distribution of the total 34,000 police strength of Lahore, he says, more than 8,000 policemen are currently discharging duties for the PSL matches, 4,000 for national census, 2,500 for Raiwind congregation and 1,000 have been spared for the security movement of the president/prime minister and other high profile dignitaries. These deployments constitute nearly half of the total strength of the Lahore police, the official says.

In addition to this, he adds, an equal number of police personnel has been deployed permanently for the security duty at 55 points in Lahore.

The duty included the security of the VIP/ VVIPs government officers from judiciary, bureaucracy, retired senior police officers, sensitive installations of the security institutes, top media persons, government offices, etc, declaring most of the deployment unauthorised.

The source says the changing dynamics of Lahore’s security and crime patterns require some reforms in the Police Rules 1934 that allowed the city police authorities to spare staff for essential security duties of only a few offices and government personalities.

Considering the serious concerns of the Lahore police higher-ups close to the facts, the IG Punjab directed them to initiate work on the plan to start new hiring as per the proposed plan as soon as possible.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2023