WITH 179,921 personnel, Punjab police is one of the world’s largest police organisations. That should come as no surprise. After all, Punjab has an area of 205,344 sq km, divided into 36 districts, with a population of some 103 million.

The province is going through a transition from rural to urban, agrarian to industrial. Proliferating slums have pushed up the crime rate not only in Lahore but other urban hubs including Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Gujranwala.

After the promulgation of the Police Order 2002 and 18th Amendment, the provinces are expec­ted to improve their law enforcement apparatus. As the most populated province, Punjab has the potential to lead the reforms.

However, although the Police Order 2002 provided some direction for urban policing, the legislation mainly involved cosmetic changes and an increase in manpower. Without operational autonomy and independent public oversight, policing standards will continue to fall short.

While the earlier policing model was primarily tailored to rural needs, the present one is neither urban nor rural. It is high time Punjab replicates in Lahore the commissionerate system prevalent in Delhi, Mumbai and Dhaka.

Socio-economic dynamics mean that extremism is primarily a rural, and terrorism an urban, phenomenon. Rural areas are incubators for extremism where extremists are reared. Police could earlier depend on the village lambardar (headman) — who was entrusted with administrative and policing functions — to reinforce its effectiveness. However, the space acquired by elected members of assemblies and local bodies has weakened the police-lambardar interaction.

Punjab police can lead the way in reforms.

Police in Pakistan is hierarchical in nature and pyramidical in structure, a legacy of its colonial past. Punjab police is no different: it too follows rigid functional norms wherein communication travels from upper to lower tiers. In contrast, modern police services typically practise two-way communications and cultivate strong community relations.

The ‘thana culture’ can be traced to Punjab, where custodial deaths and police encounters sullied the force’s reputation. It was only due to a proactive judiciary and media that these trends registered some decline. However, Punjab police has the potential to transform itself from a ‘force’ to a ‘service’. To achieve this, more transparency in management and merit-based postings at the police-station level are warranted.

Police station financing also requires urgent attention. Does anyone ever consider how police stations are financially managed? Who pays for the stationery, the meals for those in police custody, for transporting bodies for postmortem from a crime scene?

Initiatives like that of the Elite Force, Counter Terrorism Force, model police stations, patrolling police, recruitment of graduate inspectors and traffic wardens are commendable but real change will not come about through media tickers.

In the recent past, there have been a few incidents where the media’s sensationalist reporting dented the police’s image. There must be stocktaking of the force’s image and a re-knitting of media relations.

Now to some numbers. The 179,921-strong Punjab police serves a population of 103 million. In Turkey, 200,000 policemen serve 60m people. In 2013, Turkey allocated $7.5 billion for its police; the Punjab police’s annual budget for the same year was $0.75bn.

In 2013-14, Punjab police’s share in the provincial budget was 7.59pc. Of the allocation, 84pc went towards salaries and 7.7pc to fuel, leaving only 8.3pc for operational costs.

Per capita police spending must be increased. Pre­sently per capita police ex­­penditure in Punjab is $7.6. In contrast, Indian Punjab spends $15.9, Turkey $135 and London $754.

Given the size of the province, quick mobility is of crucial importance in Punjab. How­ever, 85pc of the total 12,000 police vehicles have completed their specified five years in service.

At present seven training institutions are functional, including police college Sihala. An organisation the size of Punjab police requires another training college like Sihala at the divisional level.

Punjab shares borders with all the provinces, which makes it easier for terrorists to transit from one jurisdiction to another. It is thus imperative for Punjab police to improve inter-provincial coordination. Also, river policing is a neglected area.

While the Punjab government has established a state-of-the-art forensics laboratory, forensic science in crime detection cannot be employed effectively without enhancing the capacity of investigators. The disconnect needs to be bridged with capacity-building of first responders and investigators.

Although Punjab has a separate prosecution service, the conviction rate continues to decline. To reverse this, better coordination between investigators and prosecutors is imperative.

Finally, to improve its image in the eyes of the public, Punjab police should reduce its dependence on statistical-based performance assessment and instead introduce innovative means of ‘image audit’.

The writer is a police officer.

Published in Dawn February 19th , 2015

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