PESHAWAR: Women's police station short of equipment
By Shafiq Ahmad
PESHAWAR, Feb 4: The only women's police station of the province situated in Police Headquarters here has not been provided with necessary facilities for properly running a police station, official sources told Dawn here on Wednesday.
The women police station established in 1996 was not provided the same facility in the last eight years which were provided to other 22 police stations in the provincial metropolis, the sources said.
"There is no telephone connection at the police station and instead the policewomen are given the telephone extension line of the nearby Police Club, which functions only until 2:30pm in the afternoon. During the rest of the day they receive messages through a constable working in the wireless room at the Police Lines," said the sources.
There must be at least two telephone connections to the policewomen at their station just like other police stations in the city for utilising their services properly, a source said.
They said that station also had no wireless system to receive any emergency message.
"In case a raid is conducted on a house which has womenfolk, which cannot be conducted without the lady policewomen present, the police station concerned sends the wireless message to the Central Police Office, which then sends the message to the Police Lines for informing the women's police station," they said.
Also, not even a single vehicle has been provided to the women's police station for official duties, and in cases when they are called to official duty, the policewomen have to ask for a vehicle from the police station concerned in the area where their services are required, they lamented.
After performing their duty, the women have to return on their own as the police stations normally did not drop them back to their police station, they added.
When the women police station was established eight years ago, the high-ups of the department promised at that time that they would soon provide vehicles and telephone connections to the women police force. But, those promises are still to be materialised.
A police official said that the FIR register provided to the police station was also still lying blank.
To ensure speedy justice to women of the province, the government must honour its commitment by providing all basic facilities to the policewomen, including at least a vehicle, and proper communications to the station, they said.
