ISLAMABAD: A handbook detailing the rights of citizens while dealing with the police, developed by the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) was launched on Wednesday.

The handbook titled ‘A citizen’s guide to understanding arrest and detention’ explains the rights of civilians when facing police custody and gives basic information like when the police can make an arrest without a warrant. It also explains the rights of arrested and detained persons.

It talks about the five redresses against arbitrary arrests and detention which are: complaining to a senior police officer, going to a court of law, seeking legal aid, registering complaints with the ombudsmen and approaching the National Commission for Human Rights.

Civilians and police officers at the launch agreed that the police department was still working under an outdated system and that most police stations were not suited to accommodate ordinary citizens.

Talking about this, the additional inspector general (AIG) of police from the AJK, Faheem Ahmed Khan, said: “We should keep in mind that the police are not an independent, autonomous body in Pakistan. It is an attached department which has to follow the government’s directives.”

He added that it was the responsibility of the public and of politicians to make the police department a transparent and independent body, much like UK’s Scotland Yard.

AIG Khan’s comments opened way for other officers to complain and talk about their grievances against the police.

Abbas Hussein Malik of the National Police Bureau said the police still worked under the Police Order 1861, which was drafted just a few years after the British occupation of India in 1858. This law, he said, needed to be replaced.

Mr Malik explained: “[The British] needed a system to control the locals by, one that would require minimum officers. The unfortunate thing is that the government still wants the same system to remain in place to control the people.”

Speakers criticised the outdated system under which the police worked and pointed out that a police mobile, on average, was given just six to eight litres of fuel a day and that the budget for a detained person’s food was still ‘eight annas’.

Commenting on this, DSP Rawalpindi Shamshad Akhtar said: “I am sure many young people don’t even know what eight annas are.” She said friends and relatives of those detained had to bring them food.

Other speakers said the Police Order 2002 had been introduced to replace the 1861 law but it had not been implemented in Islamabad, while the Sindh government had decided the older law was better.

Similarly, they said, none of the projects that were initiated as far back as 10 years ago to update police departments, including the National Forensic Agency and IT systems in police stations, had been started.

All participants agreed that community policing should be introduced and that it will improve the police’s image and will reduce misuse of powers by officers.

DIG Crime Branch Karachi, Azhar Rasheed Khan, said community policing has improved crime reporting in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015