LAHORE – The Punjab Police faces difficulties in investigation, screening equipments and locating suspects, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told the Punjab Assembly (PA) on Tuesday. Sanaullah admitted that police did not have facility of phone locator, as this equipment is only being used by intelligence agencies. The law minister said that the Punjab government had demanded the federal government to provide locators nothing has been done in this regard.
Question mover Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA) Naseer Ahmad asked that why the Punjab government seeks permission from the federal government on which the law minister said that such devices are always used by intelligence agencies. He said that three months ago, the Punjab government held a detailed meeting with the Interior Ministry in this regard.
The law minister informed the House that in the meeting held under Interior Minister Senator Rehman Malik’s chair, the minister had assured that authorities would review the decision in connection with provision of the system to police. But three months had passed and the Punjab government was waiting for the reply, he said.
Sanaullah admitted that owing to non-availability of this system, police faced problems in crime detection and were not able to deliver best results. He assured the House that as soon as the federal government grants permission, the Punjab government would import phone locators from its own expenses. Acting PA speaker Rana Mashood said that people could find whereabouts of a desired person from social networking site Facebook, so what is the harm in using phone locators for crime detection. He said that the law needed to be reviewed for better crime detection. This issue remained under discussion for many minutes and Sanaullah’s statement about police’s inefficiency forced MPAs to support provision of phone locator facility to police but with the assurance that public privacy would not be on stake.
Responding to another question by Ayesha Javed about acid throwing and women burn incidents, the law minister told the House that the Punjab government has made strict laws in this regard. He said that case of acid throwing or burning women is registered under section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) to ensure exemplary punishment to the accused. Sanaullah said it had also remained a practice that families registered fake cases, which most of the time ended with a patch-up or reconciliation, but section 7 of the ATA discouraged the exercise and now only genuine cases are registered. He informed the House after registration of the case, action against the SHO concerned could also be taken if the accused is not arrested within a week.
The law minister said that in light of instructions of the Punjab CM, police have been strictly asked to deal with cases of burning women or acid throwing with full devotion. He assured the House that no negligence would be tolerated in this regard. Opposition MPA Humaira Awais Shahid expressed dissatisfaction over answer of the department to a question about performance of the child protection bureau. She said, “I am very much sure that details provided to the House are not correct”. The law minister, responding to a question by MPA Naveed Anjum about illegal possession of the Government Gulberg High School allegedly by former MNA and naib district nazim Farooq Amjad Mir, said that the matter is pending with the court so he could not comment on it. But Anjum alleged that the former MNA purchased the plot in name of his mother-in-law and got illegal possession of its adjacent property that was actually owned by the above-mentioned school. The chair asked the mover not to press the issue, as it is pending in court.
