KARACHI: Within two weeks of its establishment to investigate alleged misuse of authority, high-handedness or financial corruption by law enforcers, the Sindh IG’s complaint cell has received more than 450 complaints against police officials, said a senior officer on Monday.

The hundreds of complaints against officials ranking from constables to senior superintendent of police indicated growing public grievances against the law enforcers across the province, added the officer.

The staff at the complaint cell, which was working at the central police office, received enormous response from the people through text messages, phone calls, fax and emails.

The officer said each complaint had been responded to and forwarded to the relevant authorities for investigation and action.

“Within [two weeks], we have received some 450 complaints from all districts of Sindh,” said Additional IG (Administration) Asad Raza who had been looking after the project as its head.

Complaints may be lodged against police officials all the way up to SSPs

“The complaints are different in nature but they all are against police officials of different cadres and of course they also include some senior officers as well. After checking and establishing the identification and basic details of the complainant and the complaint, we forward it to the DIG concerned for investigation and action.”

He said the cell was established on direct orders of Sindh IG A.D. Khowaja who himself was keen to establish a direct contact with people to learn about their complaints against the law enforcement agency to enhance its performance and build a better reputation.

Under the defined mechanism, he said, the complaint cell had prioritised its functions depending upon severity of the complaints. “We have divided the complaints into three categories — normal, urgent and prompt,” said AIG Raza. “The complaints, which are not of urgent nature and related to general working of the police, are referred to DIGs with directives to solve them within 15 days. Secondly, there are urgent complaints which need to be fixed within a week and finally the prompt one is tagged with the directive to solve it within 24 hours.”

On Aug 24, IG Khowaja inaugurated the complaint cell where citizens can directly lodge complaints against police with the provincial police chief on helpline 9110 that has been functioning at the CPO since then.

The helpline is connected with all administrative divisions of Sindh police, said the police chief. The purpose behind the centre was to serve the public by addressing their grievances on a priority basis, he added. According to a police statement, the 9110 helpline is for citizens to lodge complaints against the SHOs for refusing to register an FIR, the investigation officers for not following a case properly, the policemen for keeping someone in illegal detention, demanding bribes or deliberately delaying legal work, the officials for booking any law-abiding citizen in a fake case or any officer lodging fake cases intentionally.

Such massive response from the people and a huge number of complaints against the police officials demands immediate revival of Provincial Public Safety and Police Complaint Commission (PPSPCC), which had been envisaged more than a decade ago but never materialised, an official said.

“The safety commission was supposed to look into the public complaints pertaining to alleged misuse of authority, dishonest investigation, negligence or inefficiency on the part of police personnel. Head of this commission had the authority to recommend proceedings against delinquent police personnel, including officers,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2017