KARACHI: Public safety body fails to live up to expectations
KARACHI, Dec 17: The Provincial Public Safety and Police Complaint Commission — an independent body tasked with holding police accountable as per the Police Order-2002 on public complaints — is not being allowed to work freely by the high-ups in the police department and administration. It has been gathered that certain senior police officials do not like the very idea of making the police accountable to public or their elected representatives.
While promulgating the Police Order-2002, President Pervez Musharraf had expressed his confidence that it would help transform the police from a “repressive entity” to “an accountable and responsive” set-up enjoying trust of the government and the public.
Well-placed sources said that in Sindh, the president’s plan to set up such an independent commission had miserably failed owning to the police hierarchy’s traditional approach and mindset. Top police officials feel it insulting to be made accountable to public or their representatives. This feeling has been delaying the activation of this vital organ of good governance.
Section 73 of the Police Order-2002 provides: “There shall be a Provincial Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission, consisting of 12 members; of them half shall be independent, while remaining shall be elected representatives, four from the treasury and two from the opposition benches.”Former MPA Shama Mithani, who had been nominated by the opposition during the previous assembly’s tenure, has accused the bureaucracy for rendering the commission without facilities and depriving it of its independent status.
“First of all, the commission remained without a head for a certain period. The Police Order provides that federal interior minister and provincial home minister will be heading the federal and provincial set-up, respectively. However, the then chief minister, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, held the position and the commission held its meeting at the CM’s House.”
She said she and Ahmed Ali Jalbani (also a former MPA) had opposed holding of commission’s meeting at the CM’s House and also boycotted the meeting.
Secondly, she said, the government was reluctant to provide funds to the commission until months after its establishment.
The sources said just one-fourth of the required funds was released and this, too, was made available after the provincial government’s tenure was over. They pointed out that the strength of the commission had been put at 40 but not a single person was recruited despite a lapse of six months since its inception.
“Only eight/nine staffers, all transferred from the services and general administration department, are at its disposal,” they added.
Provincial Secretary of the Public Safety and Police Complaint Commission Raees-uddin Piracha has maintained that the institution had been founded in May this year and working according to its capacity.
Acknowledging that the commission is a victim of multifarious problems mainly relating to funds and manpower, he said the government had now provided the funds but the same were too little to cater to the needs of the commission.” He, however, did not give an exact figure.
“We had received 232 complaints registered by the home department and referred from the Governor’s House. A few of them were lodged by citizens directly,” Mr Piracha stated. “Some 15/20 cases have been disposed of and the remaining ones are in the process,” he maintained.
The sources, however, indicated that no penalty had been imposed in a single case on the accused police officials, and said that police hierarchy would always obstruct the investigations or close the file with remarks that the complainant had dropped the charges against the accused.—PPI
