LAHORE, July 6: The Punjab police have not created separate investigation wings at the district level because of their inability to provide the manpower through promotions or recruitments
, but purchased and handed over their machinery and vehicles to the regular police force in violation of rules.
It would take a long time to create the investigation wings because of hurdles in the recruitment or promotions. And in the meantime the machinery and vehicles misused by regular police for law and order, and escorts would wear out, rendering investigation officers unable to operate in the fashion designed in the Police Order 2002, official sources said on Tuesday.
They said at least 22 vehicles had been handed over to the Rawalpindi police, which were being used by police stations or for providing escorts to VVIPs. This was peanuts, as hundreds of such vehicles, computers and other machinery had been handed over to police in all the districts, they said.
"It's clear that the resources released for the investigation wings are being misused," they said. In addition to hundreds of inspectors, sub-inspectors, ASIs and supporting staff, there were 149 sanctioned posts of DSPs for investigation wings in districts, each to be headed by an SP.
They said all these posts of DSPs would be filled through promotions, as under the new law only ASIs could be recruited through the Punjab Public Service Commission. But, the police authorities were unable to promote the officers because of lack of powers to create relevant promotion boards under the police order.
Under the police order, they said, the IGP was authorized to constitute boards for such promotions but the powers were not being notified for him because of the opposition by the home department that previously had such authority.
The home department, they said, was blocking the move on the grounds that it could be done only after the notification of rules of the law. They said the required number of new ASIs had yet to be appointed because of ban on recruitment.
The government, too, had not relaxed rules for the purpose and it appeared that this could not be done in near future. They said the police had received resources for investigation wings, but was wondering as to whom should these be handed over because of the absence of offices, staff and other paraphernalia.
The SP investigations were notified as disbursing and drawing officers two years ago, but only few of them had been appointed in the entire province. A few SP investigation had been appointed, but they did not have required staff like accountants, head clerks, clerks and telephone operators. "They all are yet to be appointed," the sources said.
A section of the lower officers was to be transferred to the investigation wings from the regular police, but a majority of them were not interested in joining the new job because it did not have any 'charm.'
The real charm for joining the investigation wing had been the new motorcycles. After getting them many lower grade officers tended to seek repatriation to regular police. And such requests were being entertained by DIGs and DPOs because of the political clout of the officers. "You know how hard it is to retrieve a motorcycle from a transferred officer," they said.
"The districts cannot take up the task of investigation due to lack of interest in the serving force to join the wings and hurdles in recruiting or promoting new force," they said.
