RANA HAIDER
Due to careless attitude of the Punjab Police Department, the thieves, robbers, thugs and killers targeted the civilians in 2016. Only in Lahore, over 73,300 cases have been reported to around 86 police stations which include murders, kidnappings, thefts and house robberies. However, the police failed miserably in catching these thugs and murderers. The civilians lost their lives, cash and other valuables such as cars and bikes worth million of rupees.
Unfortunately, newly-established police forces also failed to protect the civilians. The Punjab government did heavy funding to stop the street crimes and created different forces like Dolphin Force, Punjab Police Constable Recruitment Force (PRU), Elite Force etc but all these forces could do nothing to make the street crime ratio fall. These forces’ personnel only pay attention on sending good reports to their high-ups rather than taking any action against the criminals.
On the first day of Data Ali Hajvery Urs, there was high security alert in the city. It seems that all the forces were put on duty around Data Darbar and rest of the city was left at God’s will. With such high security, a robbery incident took place at Millat Park in which 4 people were killed including a father and a son and 6 others were critically injured. This is the biggest police failure. With the increasing street crime and police’s non-professional attitude, the people now prefer having personal weapons. This practice also resulted in another bloody event at the Lower Mall where two thieves were shot by a shopkeeper. The rate of street crimes is not decreasing and the watchdog (police) is barking instead of biting.
According to a source, senior police officers are restricting all the divisional SPs to report and launch FIRs less against street crime. Police officers do their best to delay further reports and if anyone puts pressure then they launch the FIR especially in robbery incidents. For example, Babar, a resident of Millat Park, lost his money Rs 375,000 on October 18, 2016 in a theft incident. On the same day, he went to the concerned police station to report the theft but the cops entangled him in other things instead of registering a case even after a month. Finally, Babar approached a DIG and managed to get his case registered with the police.
Every government has been creating different police forces with heavy funding to control the crimes. These forces’ personnel are ordered to roam on the city roads to keep an eye on criminal activities but this is people’s bad luck that these personnel are put on protocol duty and the people are left with the bandits.
The latest example is the creation of Dolphin and PRU forces but the result was the same and these efforts proved futile. Some of the police officers of these forces were caught taking bribe from the people. Now they block roads and tease people whether it is in their jurisdiction or not. The onlu difference between the old police personnel and these forces is that new cops have new uniforms and better equipments and gadgets.