KARACHI: In an attempt to achieve a high conviction rate, the Sindh government has approved a proposal to hire 200 inspectors and as many prosecutors for carrying out effective investigations and prosecution of cases of heinous crimes, it emerged on Sunday.

Official sources privy to the recent development said that the Sindh police had formally received approval from the provincial government to appoint inspectors in the investigation wing of the police and prosecutors and an announcement in this regard would be made soon through advertisements in national dailies.

“Some 200 inspectors will be hired only to be posted at the investigation section of the Sindh police,” said an official citing details of the approved proposal. “They will be trained as investigation officers with all necessary syllabus and training manuals specially designed for that particular job. It has not been made part of the conventional police training yet.”

He said the proposal was forwarded by the police authorities to the provincial government maintaining that thousands of suspects had been arrested during the ongoing targeted operation in the city on charges of their involvement in cases pertaining to terrorism, murder, extortion and kidnapping for ransom, but their conviction by courts still remained a big challenge mainly due to the weak investigations.

The authorities believed that a weak investigation section was not only affecting the overall policing but also leaving a negative impact on the overall annual law and order budget, as the police were compelled to spend more money on operational side due to the meager conviction rate.

“Similarly, the hiring of 200 prosecutors will help investigators setting the course of their work for conviction of suspects. Under the current exercise, there is a wide gap between the prosecution and investigation which ultimately benefits the criminals,” added the official.

The Sindh government has allocated Rs48 billion for law and order in its budget for financial year 2013-14. In his budget speech in June 2013, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had announced the recruitment of 20,000 policemen in the current fiscal year and to give them “high-quality rigorous training” to make a “strong and professional workforce”.

Apart from the regular budget, the Sindh government had recently released more than Rs1bn for the police department for purchase of security ‘assets’ aimed at controlling internal disturbances in Karachi.

The ‘assets’ included bulletproof jackets, helmets, machine guns, sub-machine guns and assault rifles.

The official said the recent decision for recruitment of investigators and prosecutors was part of the ‘resolve’ of the Sindh government for ‘institutional capacity building’.

“Last month incorporation of a booklet into police training was part of the Sindh police plan to focus more on investigation while training recruits,” he said while referring to the booklet, Basic Investigation Handbook, penned by DIG-South Abdul Khaliq Sheikh. “The book covers basic concepts, procedures, documentation, legal provisions and other guidelines. It gives activity based training on drawing crime-scene sketches, preparing memos, writing case diaries and preparing final charge sheets.”

Calling it ‘unfortunate’, he said that majority of the existing lot of the investigators was not aware of the basic requirment, which led to poor investigation and subsequent less conviction rate of the criminals.

“So it’s not enough only to make the booklet a part of the training course but there is a need to follow design and follow comprehensive training programmes which produce good policemen for both operational and investigation sections,” added the official.

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