LAHORE: The capital city district police have so far arrested 329 people for violating three recently promulgated ordinances by the Punjab government in January 2015 and booked 673 others for violating the Foreigners Act 1946 and Code of Criminal Procedures 1898 to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism.

On the other hand, police are facing difficulties in judicial trials and conviction processes as people, arrested and booked in connection with Punjab Information of Temporary Residence Ordinance, Punjab Sound Systems (Regulation) Ordinance and Arms Ordinance (amendment) Ordinance, have secured their bails from local courts.

A source says police are not getting encouraging response from the courts which are not welcoming summary trials of the arrested suspects because of legal hiccups and lack of appraise. He says all the arrested suspects for carrying illegal arms have got their bails secured.

The source says the initiation of summary trials in recent arrests needed new legal procedures with mutual coordination among police, prosecution and judiciary.

‘Most of accused get bails from local courts’

Official statistics, available with Dawn, show Lahore police have arrested 190 people and booked them in 152 cases during a crackdown on tenants residing in residential properties and staying in hotels and inns since Jan 9.

Similarly, 63 people have been arrested and booked in 89 cases of loudspeaker misuse while up to 76 people have been apprehended and booked in as many cases under amended arms ordinance since Jan 9.

Furthermore, 673 people have been arrested and booked in cases under foreigners act and sections 55/109 of CrPc since Dec 16, 2014.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf told Dawn 6,300 people had so far been checked in intelligence-led search and sweep operations across the city since the launch of National Action Plan in December 2014. He said requests of summary trials had been forwarded to courts against violators of three ordinances.

The DIG said the action against owners of residences, hotels, inn and other rental places had been initiated after repeated warnings by local police to submit particulars of tenants.

Published in Dawn January 26th , 2015

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