LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Punjab, has issued a fact sheet about the law and order situation in Punjab, saying it worsened in the last one year with 5,820 reported murders, of them 341 in Lahore.

In the fact sheet issued on Monday, PTI Punjab organiser Chaudhry Sarwar said 14,437 kidnap cases, 95 kidnap-for-ransom cases, 2,867 rape and 235 gang-rape cases had been reported from across Punjab, which was a slap on the face of the government.

He said over 40,000 proclaimed offenders were moving freely in Punjab and over 440 encounters had been staged in the province, several of them fake.

Similarly, he said, some 7,000 rustling and 20,960 of vehicle and motorcycle theft cases had sealed the incompetence of the rulers. He regretted that extortion cases had also become a routine in Lahore.

In the last year, he said, 385,200 cases were registered about different crimes in police stations across Punjab, while, thousands of people just failed to get their cases registered.

He said the data available on Punjab police website showed that 102,073 cases were reported about dacoity, robbery and vehicles, motorcycles and animal snatching and theft. He said 122,945 cases were registered under special and local laws, while 102,559 cases were registered under miscellaneous laws.

Mr Sarwar said the Punjab police had completely failed to maintain law and order in the province because the police officials were playing the role of PML-N’s police wing instead of apprehending the culprits.

He said the police were busy targeting PML-N’s political opponents and people of Punjab had become completely unsafe.

“Punjab has actually become a safe heaven for the criminals,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2016