Inspector Waseem Durrani, the chief law instructor at the Chung Police Training Academy is very optimistic about the change that he and others are trying to bring within the police force, especially where recruiting new women police officers is concerned.
“Since we have been properly training young women to perform better and with improved services in the police force, the IG Punjab is now pushing for more recruitment of women,” he says proudly. The Police Training Academy at Chung is just one example, even though it has a lot of facilities than just any other academy. All over Pakistan, with an effort of police authorities colleges are training women wings for education and training, and police authorities are getting more and more women to work for them now at higher levels too.
Recently the Senate of Pakistan had unanimously passed three important women’s rights bills including the ‘Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Act (Criminal Law Amendment), 2011’, ‘The Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Act, 2010’, and The Women in Distress and Detention Fund (Amendment) Bill 2011. This is more than a step forward. However experts who work with police say that this will never be enough till the bills are implemented. And this will only be possible through inducting more women in the police force. At the same time the security situation in the country has worsened to such an extent that more and more police is being used for field work. This is usually the male police officers, and for this reason, investigation suffers.
Dr Khola Iram, who is a senior technical expert at German Technical Cooperation and is the project head of the induction of more women in the police force, says that the women must fill in the vacuum which has been left behind by police officers who work in the field.
“Since these women cannot work in the field, they should be trained to work in the investigation branch,” she says. “With time then, they will also be shifted into main stream policing.”
“A lot needs to be done for this to come about,” says Dr Iram, adding that they are starting with Punjab and stressing on the provincial police first rather than the Federal CSS officers.
“The provincial police have much more interaction with crime at the ground level,” she says.
“This is why it is more important in this regrd.”
To have a better rate of graduates coming out the PTS Chung has made their schooling better.
“We have two basic jobs,” says CLI Inspector Wasim. “One is to teach the police how to give
their duty of protection. This can be protection of documents, crime scene, bodyguards, etc and the other is advanced investigation. This is further divided into more sub divisions. But basically it consists of crime scene protection and preservation, identifying, collecting and lifting evidences and other responsibilities.”
Durrani says he is happy that the school at Chung has modeled itself some brilliant classrooms. Punjab has about 6 institutions out of which there are 5 police training colleges and one elite training institute which is a school for intelligence training (Crime Investigation Department and Special Branch).
But the Chung campus has model classrooms, a special forensics set up and facilities that offer much more for young men and women who are studying to be recruited into the police at higher positions. And Durrani says that this has definitely helped them in their career.
“About 5 girls have been given SP designations this year,” he says. “As a result of our success, the Saeedabad College in Karachi has also opened up a women’s wing. even the women SSPs have been transferred to new areas of work including investigation, patrolling and inspection. With a new woman DIG now, in Islamabad, things will definitely move towards a change in Punjab.”
