The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday ordered the Police Operations Deputy Inspector General (DIG) to submit a report about the un-arrested proclaimed offenders (POs) of the Lahore region.
The court was hearing a petition of Mohammad Ali who had approached the LHC for not arresting four POs involved in a fake deal of his 12 kanal land located near Saggian bridge worth Rs 1 billion.
The petitioner said that accused Ifat Nadeem, Haroon Aziz, and Shahzad Sultan in 2009 tried to grab his land, which his father had purchased in 1954, in connivance with the Patwari.
A case was registered by him against the accused in the Lower Mall Police Station and since then they are POs, while the police was not making any efforts to arrest them.
Upon this Justice Rauf Ahmad Sheikh summoned Lahore Police Operations Wing DIG Ghulam Mahmood Dogar to inform the court about all such POs in Lahore. The LHC ordered the DIG to submit a report with all the details of the Pos, including the nature of their offence and names of the police stations where the cases were registered against them.
Appearing in the court, the DIG said that there were 22,554 POs in Lahore alone, who were still at large. The judge expressed shock on the disclosure, observing that 22,554 POs were a threat for the citizens of Lahore. The judge directed the DIG to file a report on why the police have failed to arrest the criminals.
Justice Sheikh asked the DIG whether the police have arrested any POs in the recent past and if yes, the details of those criminals should also be shown in the report which should be submitted to the court till the third week of January.
The judge said it was regrettable that the police arrested the accused involved in the minor offence only, while the accused in heinous crimes were declared POs to save their skin.
The DIG under took before the court that an effective campaign to arrest the 22,554 POs would be started soon. The court adjourned the hearing till the third week of January.
