LAHORE: Inspector-General (IG) of Police Punjab Captain retd Arif Nawaz Khan said that it is the responsibility of regional police officers (RPO) and district police officers (DPO) to improve the working of police stations therefore all field officers should pay surprise visits to police stations and also assess the working of staff deputed in front desk, operations and investigation branches and also ensure the strict implementation of performance of duties in accordance with the devised SOPs by Central Police Office (CPO).
He further said that the monitoring of CCTV cameras installed in lock-ups, front desk and inside rooms of station house offices (SHO) should be guaranteed at any cost and if any incident of discourteous behaviour with public or taking of law into hands happens then there should be no delay in taking action against the guilty officers or officials.
He added that the officers who don’t award punishment to their subordinates in accordance with the discipline matrix should also be ready for departmental actions. IGP Punjab further directed the DPOs that they should personally supervise the crackdown against top 20 listed criminals of their concerned districts and rest of the accused should be arrested and presented before the law.
IGP directed to prepare the list of those officers and officials who were again and again posted in one police stations and directed to shift them from these police stations immediately. He moreover said that stern steps should be taken against the drug pushers especially dealers of drug known as Ice who are spoiling the future of young generations. IGP reiterated that information based operation should be boosted up against drugs pushers especially at educational institutions and they should be arrested and punished severely.
He also directed to boost up the crackdown against those persons who have illegal and non-licensed weapons. He further said that the license of weapons used in criminal activities should be cancelled and send the reports to the Central Police Office. These views were expressed by IGP Punjab while giving directions to all officers of the province via a video link conference at Central Police Office.
In the conference, all the RPOs, CPOs and DPOs from across Punjab briefed IGP about overall crime situation and ongoing operations by Punjab police. They told IGP that it is our mission to build the police image by better service delivery and they also briefed IGP that police is engaged for the protection of public lives and wealth using all available resources. IG Punjab directed that trust between police and public can be improved with better coordination of police with the public, performing official duties effectively and improving public service delivery.
For this purpose, all police officers should especially brief their subordinates about public dealing so that they may win their hearts by ensuring better public service delivery.
IGP Punjab moreover said that there should be no slackness in taking departmental action against police officers who are found guilty of illegal detentions or any kind of irregularities and negligence in the reports of Internal Accountability Bureau teams surprise visits to the police stations. He said that officers and officials guilty of illegal detentions would not be tolerated because of these black sheep the whole force has to bear criticism so all the police officers should take strict departmental action against the responsible officers and officials for deaths of accused under police custody and they will have to be answerable.