KARACHI: Karachi police chief Dr Amir Ahmed Shaikh on Sunday announced ‘radical changes’ in the police set-up.

He was chairing a high-level meeting at the Police Headquarters, Garden, which was attended by all DIGs, SSPs and other officers.

He announced ‘empowering’ station investigation officers (SIOs) and provisions of computers, printers and photostat machines to investigation officers. He said every SIO would have two mobile vans and two motorbikes, besides other facilities, at his disposal.

Districts will have interrogation room of world standard within three months

He also issued directions for setting up ‘investigation units’ in order to improve the investigation process.

Instead of providing several cases at one time, the IOs would be assigned three to four cases on a monthly basis for better investigation.

The AIG said that the IOs would be provided in advance the cost of investigations as he did not want to financially burden them.

He said malkhana and lock-up of each police station would be the responsibility of the SIOs, who would also be responsible for the custody of all inmates.

“A raid party comprising eight to 10 policemen will be established at each police station,” he said. “An interrogation room of international standards will be established in each district of Karachi within next three months.”

He regretted that over “100 black sheep” were giving a bad name to the 36,000-strong police force. He said that such black sheep in the police would not be tolerated any more.

Motorbike theft on rise

The city police chief claimed that the street crimes in the city had actually ‘decreased’ as per the comparative data compiled by the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee. However, he conceded that overall crimes were on a decline in the metropolis except theft of motorbikes.

He disclosed that certain groups were active and concerted efforts were being made to take such criminals to task.

He pointed out that street crimes data compiled by the CPLC and the police showed that street crimes had decreased

in the city as compared to the corresponding period last year.

Till Sept 6 last year, 156 vehicles were snatched while this year, 142 cars were taken away.

In 2017, a total of 868 cars were stolen while till Sept 6 this year, 848 four-wheelers were stolen.

Last year, 1,693 motorbikes were snatched while this year so far, 1,486 incidents of snatching of motorbikes had been reported, he added.

However, comparative data showed that last years, 16,086 motorbikes were stolen while this year, 17,832 motorbikes were stolen, thus registering over 10 per cent increase.

Last year, 10,892 mobile phones were snatched/stolen while this year so far, 10,421 mobile phones were either snatched or stolen.

The city police chief claimed that this month a “significant decrease” was witnessed in the street crimes in the metropolis.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2018