LAHORE: The Punjab police department has raised a new force comprising 200 personnel below 40 years of age under the banner of Eagle Squad Kasur, dedicating them only for the prevention of the violent crime of the city.

Bounded on the north by Lahore and on the south-west by Okara district, the highly under-resourced Kasur has been creating enormous crime impact on the nearby cities, particularly, in the provincial capital where the hardened criminals used to come to commit crime being just at a 45-minute travel distance.

In recent times, it has also been plagued by various child abuse scandals, attracting the attention of the Punjab police high-ups.

With 111-km border area and 1:2,150 police-population ratio, Kasur houses a total of 25 police stations, four sub-divisions besides reporting over 30,000 annual crimes.

200 personnel selected from pool of constables, head constables across all police stations in Kasur

An official said the Kasur police high-ups held a series of meetings to bring a permanent solution to the high crime rate and finally they came up with the idea of raising the force that would combat crime against properties.

He said a team of the police experts headed by Kasur DPO Essa Sukhera constituted Eagle Squad which represented 10 per cent of the district’s police strength and shared the proposal to the Punjab IG who accorded approval accordingly.

Aged below 40, he said, the police personnel of the squad were selected from the pool of constables and head constables across all police stations in Kasur.

The strategy was to deploy them in a police station which is adjacent to police station of their posting in order to avoid conflict of interest and to improve operational efficiency, he said.

Currently, 25 teams and 125 police personnel have been fielded in Kasur district, with an additional 15 teams and 75 personnel currently undergoing training at Kasur police lines by highly qualified elite trainers.

The official said each team, consisting of two motorcycles and five personnel (two head constables and three constables), would ensure that four officers would be on duty at all times, with one in rotation. Additionally, they have been granted a security of tenure lasting three months.

The squad stands out as a modern patrolling unit, equipped with new standardised uniforms, wireless sets, brand new Xiaomi phones, dedicated PSO fuel cards, and SIMs with 36 GB data, 1,000 off-net and 12,000 on-net minutes.

Each unit, consisting of two bikes and four personnel, was equipped with firearms, including two SMGs and two Beretta pistols.

The squad would operate on 12-hour shifts along specified routes, based on crime hotspots identified from 15 emergency calls.

A primary responsibility of the squad would be to be the first responders to these calls, aiming to reduce response times to less than five minutes. They have been exempted from any security or law and order duties. He said the key performance indicators have been established for each team, focusing on checking suspicious persons and vehicles using the E-Police Post App and maintaining the quick response time to emergency calls.

The squad’s operations would be closely monitored at three levels: the DPO, the SHO of the respective police station, and the Elite Force in-charge.

Their movements would be tracked in real time, and they would maintain constant communication with supervisors. The SHOs and Elite in-charges would not assign them to raids; only the DPO or sub-divisional police officers would be authorised to assign them the special operations.

About the training, he said, the programme in this respect was structured into three phases including introductory, development, and consolidation.

They were trained especially focusing on physical fitness, weapon handling, firing, lectures from the Rescue 1122, wireless communication training, and the use of information technology, particularly the E-Police Post and Crime Prevention App, which contained records of criminals and stolen vehicles, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2024