LAHORE, May 2: Five years later, the promised benefits of a much celebrated divorce between the investigation and watch and ward wings of the police are still awaited. The Lahore police were able to complete investigation in only 25 per cent of the cases brought to their notice in the first quarter of this year.

The investigation wing was supposed to lead to prompt detection of cases and timely submission of chalans. Statistics for the period January to March 2007 speak otherwise. The investigation police submitted 50 chalans in a total 162 murders reported in the city. Of the 10 dacoity-murder cases, they could complete investigation in only one case.

Only six chalans were submitted against 21 dacoities reported in the period, while the ratio of robberies was 38 to 295.

There were 31 gang-rape incidents between January and March this year but the police have only eight chalans in the category to show for all the good work they have been putting in. And the petty criminals had every reason to feel safe as they saw the policemen struggle to bring the street crime under control. Some 367 incidents of street crime took place in the period but only in 48 cases were the accused charged. The so-called ‘pathar’ and ‘sharp-object’ groups also enjoyed immunity from law and not a single blind murder mystery was solved in the quarter.

The police investigators did slightly better in the category of kidnap-for-ransom when they managed to submit chalans in two cases out of a total of seven.

In the face of criticism and strict directives from the High Court, the police succeeded in tracing and arresting suspects in the high-profile murders of Seth Abid’s son and additional advocate general Punjab, Arif Bhinder. But their record of solving cases of crime against property, including big robberies, was dismal.

A case reported last September is evidence how reluctant the investigators are to investigate. An Urdu Bazaar trader, Shamsul Aalam, lost cash and valuables worth over Rs12.5m in a robbery at his Gulberg house on Sept 11, 2006. He says he went so far as providing the police with the photographs of the accused - which led to the accused being declared proclaimed offenders but not to their arrest. The media was sympathetic and the police were polite in the beginning, before they got tired of being pestered by Aalam.

“I have been told by the man in charge of the investigation that I should beware of the accused,” the trader tells Dawn.

The investigators were also unable to arrest a bank security guard and his three accomplices who were accused of making away on Dec 26, 2006 with jewellery, gold bars, prize bonds and cash worth Rs 34.47 million placed in 22 lockers of a National Bank branch on Walton Road.

These are just a few incidents where the investigation wing has been found wanting. The case against the investigators separated from the motley watch and ward group is long and there are even demands for re-empowering the once-dreaded station house officer

“The separation has enabled the two wings to pass on the responsibility to each other to avoid accountability,” says Manzoor Malik, a senior lawyer. “The powers a station house officer enjoyed under section 173 of CrPC stand challenged. Now he is only responsible for registering an FIR and maintaining law and order. Investigating a case, keeping an eye on criminals and arresting the accused are not his business. But the same SHO is supposed to put his seal on the findings of a colleague from the investigation wing.”

Manzoor says an SHO should be in charge of the overall affairs and accountable to his seniors. Until that system is restored, the operation and the investigation will continue to shirk responsibilities.

A senior police officer admits that, even while funding for them has increased, the investigators today are more corrupt than they were in the previous system. He says a power tussle between the operation and investigation wings has also affected the performance of the investigation wing. “Section 173 of the CrPC must be amended in line with the Police Order 2002 to make the investigation wing independent of the operation wing and to prevent the SHO from interfering in the case,” he says while disagreeing with Mr Malik’s observations.

DIG (investigation) Tasadduq Hussain blames it all on staff shortage. “We have only around 450 officers where we need at least 11,000 to deal with the ever increasing investigation load,” he says, before he moves on to pinpoint other flaws the investigation wing suffers from.

“Investigation officers hardly ever complete the three-year tenure which is compulsory under the Police Order 2002. Training on scientific lines is lacking as are resources and there are no incentives.”