Police reforms are need of the time:IGP Haji Habib ur Rehman

Lahore: In order to bring the hardened criminals and the terrorists to justice, reforms in the police department are a must so that the people could be provided justice and the lives and properties of the citizens could be protected. The much needed police reforms will also help build confidence between the public and the police.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) Punjab Muhammad Habib-ur-Rehman expressed these views while addressing a key symposium on “Police Reforms and Image Building” held at the Central Police Office (CPO) today. At least 18 retired IGP’s and Additional IGP’s were also present on this occasion.

Former IGP’s and Additional-IGP’s including Zia-ul-Hassan Khan, Ghulam Asghar Malik, Ahmed Naseem, Syed Azhar Hassan Nadeem, Chaudhry Muhammad Yaqoob, Shaukat Javed, Tariq Mehmood Khosa, Rana Maqbool, Salahuddin Ahmed Khan Niazi, Khalid Lateef, Major Mushtaq, Tariq Pervaiz, Azam Joiya, Major Akram, Israr Ahmed, Asif Nawaz, Altaf Qamar, and Hamayun Raza Shafi attended the symposium.

Additional-IG Punjab Malik Khuda Bukhsh Awan, Additional-IG Traffic Kalb-e-Abbas, Additional-IG (PHP) Khan Baig, Additional-IG (Welfare and Finance) Sarmad Saeed Khan, Additional-IG Training Mubarak Ali Athar, Additional-IG Special Branch Punjab Nasir Khan Durrani, Additional-IG CTD Mushtaq Ahmed Sukhera, Additional-IG (Investigations) Naseem-ul-Zaman, DIG (I&V) Farooq Amin Qurashi, and Additional Commandant Police Constabulary Ahmed Raza Tahir were also present on this occasion.

The retired IGP’s presented various proposals for the reforms in the police department and suggested that a separate security unit should be established to provide security to the witnesses, complainants, prosecutors and judges during the hearing and investigations of important terrorism and crimes cases of heinous nature.

They also suggested that the de-weaponisation campaign must be completed in the province before the next general elections while the business of illegal weapons and fake licenses should be eradicated.

It was also suggested that the police should not leave any stone unturned to ensure that the criminals involved in terrorism activities are punished by the courts as per law because it would also help establish the writ of the law enforcing agency and restore the confidence of the public in the police. They also suggested that the investigations of criminal cases should be carried out purely on merit and the investigators should maximum utilise the facility of forensic lab in this regard.

It was also suggested that the police department should be purged from politics by 100 pre cent and an effective CRO should be appointed from the police. The PSP officer should himself decide the cases on merit rather than seeking opinion from the subordinates, the service structure of wardens and their postings on merit, extension of Rescue-15 service and minimising of response time, the postings of officers from the rank of IGP to the SHO for a specific time period, to make national police management forum more effective, sound media policy, regular monitoring of modern police stations, to modernise the PHO on the pattern of Motorway Police and effective public relationship, open courts on daily basis, and effective of community policing were also suggested for the reforms in the police department.

Meanwhile, IGP Muhammad Habib-ur-Rehman thanked to all the retired officers and said that the department would implement their suggestions to improve its working. Such important suggestions would also help the department build its image in the eyes of the public and the police would continue learning from the experiences of the retired officers in future as well, IGP concluded.