Despite the fact that a wave of terror is prevailing in the metropolitan for the last few days as the incidents of street crime are on the rise, Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan claimed that the law and order situation was ‘under control’ in Lahore.
The minister went on to say that no city in the world has zero crime rate, and that few incidents of crime in the population of more than 15 million people do not imply that the law and order situation is poor.
“Lahore will be a safe city by May 2017 under the Punjab Safe City Project and it will cost Rs 12 billion for the completion of this project,” he said, while speaking to the media persons in Punjab Assembly on Wednesday.
According to the law minister, the spectrum of Punjab Safe City Project will be expanded in six major cities of the province and the whole project will be completed by December 2017. Once the safe city project culminates successfully, incidents such as the Garden Town street robbery at the traffic signal will be eliminated forever and the suspects will be caught easily as there will be CCTV cameras in every nook and corner of the city, he said.
He added that statistics shows that there is a 35 per cent decline in the street crimes since the launch of Dolphin Force. When asked about the efficacy of Dolphin Force at the time of recent street crimes, he said that the personnel of Dolphin Force are less in numbers and they cannot cover the whole city.
The law minister said recruitments in the Dolphin Force are under process and crime rate will decrease once the procedure is completed.
A spree of street crimes and killings are on the rise these days in the metropolitan as five people were killed during an attempt of robbery last week in the city. Moreover, a family was deprived of cash and jewellery worth Rs 400,000 by the robbers on the city’s busiest road.
“The issues related to law and order, agriculture, education, health and irrigation will come under discussion in the 25th session of Punjab Assembly starting Thursday (today),” the law minister said.
Furthermore, two government bills will also be passed during the session that will remain in progress for ten days.
Talking about the politics of Imran Khan, Sanaullah said that Khan realised after wasting three years of the nation to approach the Supreme Court as he has in the past raised questions over the credibility of national institutions.
“Imran Khan talks about bringing change in the country but ironically he is surrounded by the symbols of status-quo in the form of Aleem Khan and Jehangir Tareen,” he said.