04 October 2004	Monday	18 Shaban 1425

KARACHI, Oct 3: Thousands of policemen and a number of police vans are deployed to protect individuals at their residences at the cost of tax-payers' money.

Half of the city's police strength is being used to safeguard individuals rather than preventing crime in their respective areas and the citizens at large are falling prey to increasing street and house robberies.

Sources say insufficient patrolling by police and their inadequate presence on roads has caused a surge in street robberies. Police officials complain that there are fewer policemen and vehicles than required at each police station. Moreover, many of the vehicles are lying out of order whereas all the new mobile vans have been deployed for the personal security of influential people or VIPs, they point out.

Police statistics show that a number of robberies and theft incidents, including car/motorcycle snatching, cycle theft, etc., in the previous year stood at 13,825. Some three persons were robbed every two hours.

According to section 18.20 of chapter XVIII of the police rules, the IGP, defunct deputy commissioner, DIGs, SPs can have police guards at their residences but once they relinquish charge, they have to give up their guards.

Ministers, the IGP, DIGs and SPs can have a police guard at their residence. They are, however, not allowed police mobile vans and police squads for protection.

Contrary to the rules, every other VIP, influential individual, including ministers, religious and political personalities, bureaucrats, retired judges, former ministers and advisers, and some privileged 'citizens' have been provided with police guards and even police mobile vans at their residences.

Besides, a number of police officials and mobile vans are on duty to provide a security shield to foreign missions and residences of foreign diplomats. Police sources said that more than 100 police escorts (an escort means a mobile van with a mobile officer and four to five policemen) had been permanently given to individuals and most of them were provided in contravention of police rules.

They said that one police escort each had been given to all DIGs and many SSPs. Three escorts were provided to all additional IGPs and more than three to their senior officer.

These police vans were other than those vehicles, which these officers possessed for travelling. They were not authorized to keep escorts according to police rules. However, they could keep only police guards for personal safety.

Similarly, all ministers and advisers were given one police escort each. However, Transport and Labour Minister Adil Siddiqui was given two and Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui was provided with more than two escorts, the sources said, and added that as per rules, they could not retain police escorts permanently and they could only be provided with police guards when they were on official visits.

Some former ministers and bureaucrats without postings are also enjoying the facility of police escort. Those include former home secretary Mukhtar Ahmed, former adviser to the CM on home affairs Aftab Ahmed Shaikh (two escorts), former SSP Garden headquarters, General (rtd) Tanveer Naqvi, and former advocate- general Raja Qureshi.

Police vans have also been provided to judges Maqbool Rizvi (two escorts), Feroz Bhatti (two escorts), Arshad Noor, Haq Nawaz Baloch (two escorts), Munir Ahmed Khuwaja, advocate-general Sindh, prosecutor Abdul Waheed, chief of NAB, City Naib Nazim, prosecutor Mazhar Qayyum, prosecutor Maula Bux Bhatti, CNC Naval, Dr Farooq Sattar, City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, Nasreen Jalil, Allama Hasan Turabi, Allama Abbas Kumaili, Sindh Ombudsman, Maulana Abbas Qadri, Ms Faiza Gabol, Waseem Sajjad (two escorts).

There is one for former interior minister Moinuddin Haider and one at his son's house and family residence. Besides police vans, hundreds of policemen have been deployed at bungalows and residences of individuals for their security.

They include General (rtd) Tanveer Naqvi, Sardar Ahmed, Altaf Unnar, Manzoor Ahmed, Irfan Marwat, Bashir Ahmed Qaimkhani, Dr Saeeda Malik, Faisal Gabol, Faquir Jan Mangrio, Wasim Akhtar, Javed Jabbar, Ali Nawaz Mehar, Nisar Khuhro, Dr Amir Liaquat Hussain, M. A. Jalil, Hameeda Khuhro, Maulana Iftekhar Hussain Bhatti of Sunni Tehrik, Omar Sadiq, Qari Mohammad Usman, Babar Ghori, Adil Siddiqui, Sakina Bano, Dewan Yusuf Faruqi, Qazi Khalid, Tufail Shaikh, Ali Haider (nephew of Moinuddin Haider), Fareed Qidwai, Majeed Asghar Qidwai, EPB Chairman Tariq Ikram, Bilal Qureshi, Jamal Ghaznavi, NBP President Ali Raza, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Nadeem, Maulvi Iqbal Haider and Engineer Ilyas Zubair.

Sources say guards have also been given to some UC nazims, including Hafiz Ahmed Ali, Amir Hashmi and town nazim Dr Pervez Mehmood. They said that none of them was entitled to a police guard for personal security but they could keep security guards on payment.

They said that there were some personalities who were at high risk of potential targets and provision of police guards to them was indispensable. However, the sources claimed that a policeman costs Rs10,000 a month for an individual's security duty.

Instead, a security guard from Police Foundation or any other security agency could be hired for Rs5,000. The government should realize the difference of expenditures and if an individual did not want to pay, the government should provide security guards for individuals and bear the expenses withdrawing police force to be used for deployment of crime prevention.

If the police manpower is withdrawn, it would significantly help control crime. After taking out the manpower deployed for individual security, the police strength for crime prevention has dwindled to about 5,500 for a population of 14 million people.

Since the division of police force into operations and investigation, a total of 13,500 police officials are available for operational duties. More than 7,000 policemen are engaged in unsanctioned security duties at 2,223 mosques/ imambargahs, 869 madressahs, 103 foreign missions, 31 food chains, 205 vital installations, 84 temples, 213 churches/hotels, 99 multinational companies and 277 petrol pumps, besides individual security duty. Thus almost 5,500 personnel are left for crime prevention.