Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Chairman Dr Umar Saif has said that in line with the directions of Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the PITB was committed to change ‘thana culture’ in Punjab by using modern technology.

Addressing a meeting held at Arfa Software Technology Park here on Monday, he said: “During last one year, we have developed a series of tech systems to track both crime and criminals to facilitate police and the public.”

“As a baseline, all 26 registers maintained in a police station have been digitised, including FIR Register-1, Register-2 (Roznamcha) and Register-10 (Surveillance Register) in 228 police stations of Punjab whereas 160,000 FIRs have so far been registered digitally. As the higher authorities of police are very encouraging, I hope this system will be rolled out across the province in next few months,” he added.

Saif said alongside the FIR system, the PITB had devised a computerised ‘Front-desk’ system to capture complaints of all citizens approaching a police station whether they were cognizable or non-cognizable.

“The SHO is bound to resolve these complaints within 72 hours by either turning them into an FIR or recording a reason for not doing so. An independent cadre of IT-savvy officers enters the data in this system while the complainant is kept informed via SMS at every step of the complaint resolution. The SP concerned, based on this data, monitors the performance of the SHOs. Over 128,000 complaints have been entered in this system so far. Shortly, we plan to make the complaint system online and accessible over a smartphone application for citizens,” he added.

Saif said that in Sargodha, Faisalabad, Vehari and Lahore each instance of crime reported in a police station was geo-tagged by the investigating officer by using an android phone application. He said, “Over 173,000 crime incidences have been geo-tagged that enable officers to plan police patrols and check posts accordingly.”

The PITB chairman further said the unwanted behaviour in police station discourages a common citizen to get assistance from the police. “To overcome this flaw, a special Helpline (8787) has been set up in the IG office where citizens can lodge complaints against police behaviour. Such complaints will be monitored personally by the IG. Moreover, all police stations and police lines are being equipped with biometric attendance devices, which will also be used to capture fingerprints of detained offenders,” he added.

Saif concluded that in near future, citizens would receive crime alerts, initiate complaints, report suspicious activities and track investigations of their reported cases while sitting home- a real change waited since long.