KARACHI: Amid growing complaints against police stations for not entertaining people seeking to lodge FIRs, the Karachi police have decided to set up a centralised cell to entertain all such matters that would also help initiate action against those officers declining justified complaints, a top official said on Wednesday.

The plan to set up the ‘centralised complaint cell’ came from the additional inspector general’s office which will be manned by a couple of senior officers, who will look into each complaint before issuing orders for registrering an FIR and action against those officials who would have denied to do so.

“The decision was taken considering the number of complaints at the police station level that officials there avoid registrering FIRs for one reason or another,” said Karachi police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo. “The centralised cell at the CPO (central police office) will entertain complaints against all crimes ranging from robbery to murder and kidnapping to extortion. Every single complaint which deserves to be turned into a proper FIR will be accepted at the CPO.”

He said the cell would be ready to receive complaints in the next few days and advertisements would be placed in the media to invite those segments of society that became victims of different crimes but their cases were not being pursued.

“The people will be allowed access to the CPO and direct interaction with the police authorities. It will benefit people in many ways as, on the one hand, it will help resolve their issues and, on the other, guide the authorities concerned to plug the loopholes at the police station level which are directly related to people,” added Mr Thebo.

With threats ranging from terrorist attacks to street crime and kidnapping for ransom to extortion, Karachiites also suffer due to the non-professional attitude of personnel of the law enforcement agency as lodging an FIR for justified reasons has always been an uphill task for a common citizen.

The move from the Karachi police chief comes as a recognition of the fact that the city police have failed to meet the basic requirement of policing, which ultimately results in the common man’s suffering.

“This is a way forward to reform the overall policing system which mainly stands on performance of the law enforcement agency at the police station level,” said additional IG Thebo. “Once we start receiving complaints for lodging FIRs and ordering actions against the officials concerned, you will see a positive change and gradually it will help fix the whole system.”

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2014