LAHORE: The Lahore police command has made a slew of appointments to overhaul the investigation wing of the city with a view to improving the [low] conviction rate that will [eventually] bring the street crime down.

A senior official told Dawn here on Monday that the police authorities got approved 348 new slots of investigation officers (IOs) from the finance department through a summary that was moved to the Inspector General of Police Punjab for consideration.

After final approval, the police authorities had already posted ‘new blood’ of 348 sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors at all the 84 police stations of the city.

Similarly, for the first time 12 new slots of deputy superintendent of police (DSPs) have also been created to designate them for the investigation wing only, he said.

Move aims at strengthening investigation to improve conviction rate

After getting approval, the two DSPs each will be posted in a police division of Lahore which is housing a total of six divisions so far.

He said these officials would solely supervise the investigation of cases of heinous nature in their respective divisions under the new scheme.

Earlier, this assignment was being done by the sub-divisional police officers (SDPOs) who were looking after both investigation and operations matters at the same time.

The assistant superintendents of police (ASPs) and the DSPs were posted in each circle of Lahore as SDPOs.

In the above-mentioned duplicate role, the SDPOs have largely been focusing on the matters pertaining to the operations wing of the Lahore police, leaving investigation of cases at the mercy of the IOs. Consequently, the investigation wing was facing the challenge of ‘lopsided’ probe.

The DSPs against the newly-created 12 seats would be ‘designated officers’ for supervising the investigations of heinous crime cases.

The creation of new slots of IOs at police station level and DSPs at division level would help decrease the burden of cases on the investigation officers and improve the quality of probe as well.

Talking about another initiative, the official said, the Lahore police department has established ‘scrutiny desks’ in each division to check the quality of investigation of cases before sending the same to the relevant courts.

Each divisional SP investigation of the Lahore police would supervise the ‘scrutiny desk’ where he would himself study each crime case referred to him by the IOs and the DSPs concerned. The SP would review the evidence of the cases and quality of the investigation before sending the same to the prosecution department, he said.

In future, the SP investigation would be held responsible for the faulty investigation if proved in any next stage including the court of law, the official said.

He said the poor performance of the prosecution department had also been one of the barriers in presenting flawless crime cases in the court of law.

Lahore CCPO Ghulam Mahmood Dogar held meetings with the senior prosecution officers to improve police-prosecution coordination.

Both sides decided that the CCPO and the senior prosecution officers would hold monthly joint meetings.

In the past, he said, the successive police authorities had been focusing more on the preventive side than the investigation wing.

Citing examples, he said multi-billion projects, including Dolphin Police Force and Punjab Safe City Authority were launched in the city though they delivered considerably at a later stage.

However, the ‘neglected’ investigation wing eventually led to the high crime rate despite making hefty budgetary allocations for prevention of crime.

The official said a study showed that world over the police departments had been focusing more on the investigation and prosecution sides to get desired results.

“Japan has reported 99 per cent conviction rate by dint of reforms in the above-mentioned both departments. The world knows one fact that the Japanese criminal courts never acquit anyone because the prosecutors bring only real criminals into the courtrooms”, the official said.

The Lahore police took some other initiatives too to provide relief to the public, the official said, adding the department has made presence of in-charge of investigation wing and IOs at their offices between 6pm and 9pm compulsory to attend cases and parties.

All the divisional investigation SPs have been directed to complete work related to the investigation cases on a daily basis.

It has been made compulsory for the station house officers and in-charge of investigation to have at least two-year experience in the investigation wing. Otherwise, they will not be appointed as SHOs and investigation in-charge.

It has also been made mandatory for each investigation officer to conduct and complete investigations of at least 180 crime cases during his two-year posting period at the police station.

The police department has printed and circulated colour-coded files with investigational checklists in eight categories of crime to guide the IOs and to raise the quality of investigation, the officer said.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2021