KARACHI: The Sindh government plans to introduce a new law for police reforms in line with modern day challenges and needs, says a senior police official on Saturday.

He said the government had already asked the police department to help its law department in writing a draft for the planned bill.

“The government has asked members of the law and order committee to make a perusal of both the Police Act 1861 and the Police Order 2002, pick good things from both the laws and combine them in the draft on police reforms. The government is determined to incorporate our proposals significantly in any future act,” said Azhar Rashed Khan, deputy inspector general (training) in the Sindh Police.

He was addressing a seminar on the rule of law, policing, challenges and solutions, organised by the Centre for Research and Security Studies in collaboration with the GIZ, a German organisation for international cooperation.

The official said that a number of commissions had been formed over the years to suggest reforms in police department but they were mostly headed by army generals and police were not taken on board. The fact that no one was ready to adhere to the law was the mother of all problems, he added.

Senator Dr Karim Khawja of the Pakistan Peoples Party said that consultation was needed to make police laws identical in all provinces. The model of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee should be replicated down to the smallest administrative unit to help police with an able aide, he said.

He called for better salaries and facilities for police and demanded that disparities in perks and pay between police and other law enforcement agencies should be done away with now.

Former Sindh police chief, Niaz Siddikki, said the country’s constitution protected fundamental rights of its citizens and the government departments and civil servants must ensure that these rights were not violated or denied. He stressed the need to strengthen investigation branch of police for effective prosecution.

Ahmed Chinoy, chief of the CPLC, said that only if police listened attentively and patiently to people’s complaints and acted promptly, half the problem would be solved.

Hafeezuddin, a provincial assembly member of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, said that citizens lived in fear and corruption was rampant in the system.

Journalist Idrees Bakhtiar said that performance of the department would remain poor unless and until police were freed from political pressure.