LAHORE: The city operations police chief on Tuesday suspended four ‘arrested’ Muhafiz Force personnel and booked them in a case for alleged sexual harassment of a woman car rider and receiving bribe from her in the Gujjarpura police area.

According to police inquiries, four constables, namely Shahid Ali, Ghulam Murtaza, Asad and Shabbir Ahmad, had stopped a woman, a resident of Dhobi Ghat, Chah Miran, at a picket in China Scheme on Nov 18 and asked for physical frisk.

The woman, who was heading to the airport, asked the officials to check her car instead of frisking her as it was immoral but the suspects kept insisting, touched her, held her hostage for one and a half hours and took her photo on a mobile. They released her after getting Rs10,000 bribe but threatened her with consequences if she disclosed the matter to anyone as they had got her photo.

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The woman brought the matter into the notice of her husband who complained to the police authorities and a departmental inquiry was launched against the suspects.

After the four policemen were found guilty, an FIR was lodged against them on Tuesday under sections 392 (punishment for robbery), 354 (assault or criminal force against woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the PPC and 155-C (penalty for misconduct by police officers) of Police Order 2002 on the complaint of the victim’s husband. The FIR followed DIG (Operations) orders. The police claimed the suspended policemen had also been taken into custody.

Suspects insist on frisking despite refusal, take photo, release her after taking bribe, threatening with dire consequences

Complaints against the only patrolling squad of Lahore police-Muhafiz Force are growing in police records, mostly over misbehaviour and bribery in the name of checking.

Four Muhafiz Force officials from Model Town police division were also recently punished for teasing and intimidating a couple in a park.

Officials say Muhafiz Force personnel deployed on roads to check the movement of criminals select soft targets, especially motorcyclists, and let them go after receiving bribe.

Muhafiz Force officials usually patrol on motorcycles with four officials in each police station’s jurisdiction under the supervision of the divisional SP, the SDPO and the SHO.

A field police officer says lack of supervision by the SDPOs and SHOs to check 12-hour duty of four Muhafiz Force officials riding two motorcycles provide them with an opportunity to skip duty. He says the patrol duty is assigned depending upon crime pockets and timings of surge in crime.

They say the street crime, a headache for senior police officers, could not be controlled because of poor patrol mechanism, deployment of untrained officials for patrolling and lack of supervision by senior officers.

DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf claimed that in the last seven days, the street crime had witnessed a decrease after Muhafiz Force patrolling was enhanced in all the police divisions.

Acknowledging that the most frequent complaint against them was bribery, he said he had so far suspended up to 10 personnel and issued them show-cause notice over corruption in the last four months.

He said the divisional SPs used to take action against Muhafiz Force officials, admitting that lack of supervision was also a challenge for the department.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014