PESHAWAR: The Rescue 1122 has planned a clampdown on the people making hoax and obnoxious calls to it in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Officials said the emergency service, which operated in 10 districts of the province, faced several issues due to a large number of hoax calls made to its toll-free number.

Rescue 1122 director general Dr Khateer Ahmad told Dawn that such callers not only kept the emergency service’s telephone lines busy but also engaged rescue vehicles and personnel and thus, endangering public life and property in case of a real mishap.

Emergency service’s DG says such callers to get notices to be followed by arrest, trial

He said Section 26 of the KP Emergency Rescue Act, 2012, outlawed the making of false and obnoxious calls to the rescue service’s operators and allowed the detention of such people for up to six months or Rs50,000 fine, or both.

The section reads, “No person shall make a false or an obnoxious call on the emergency dial-in-number or in any other manner try to falsely represent that emergency circumstance exists requiring utilization of any resources of the Rescue 1122.”

Dr Khateer said the emergency service had only three phone lines in the provincial capital and therefore, hoax callers kept them busy and thus, denying those struck by real emergency the opportunity to immediately contact rescuers for help.

“If such a caller keeps our phone line busy, it can have fatal consequences for someone struck by fire or other life-threatening emergency,” he said.

The Rescue 1122 DG said the department had been trying to educate people in its outreach campaigns and community engagements about the dangers of making false calls to rescuers.

He said in the past, the emergency service had made a documentary on the issue.

“Now, we have decided to issue notices to those making such calls. The next step will definitely be their arrest and trial by the court of law. However, right now, we are just trying to keep the people from making such calls by sending them notices,” he said.

Jawad Khalil, head of the rescue station near general bus stand in the provincial capital, told Dawn that the service got a hoax call last Thursday about a fire emergency in Tajabad area near Board Bazaar.

“It was night emergency call about the outbreak of a fire in Street No 14 so the rescuers rushed to the area but the alert turned to be hoax. The rescuers called the person many times but he did not take the calls,” he said.

Mr Khalil said the Rescue 1122 examined the area and asked residents about the fire but there was none and therefore, they returned after half an hour.

He said when the rescuers responded to false calls, a real emergency could claim life or lives somewhere else.

Head of Rescue 1122 control room Zafar Mukhtar said the service received a large number of hoax calls on a daily basis.

He said at times, the people even called rescuers about thefts, while many dialed their phone number seeking information.

“Some even call us to know about tomato price and vent anger at power outages.

The figures show that Rescue 1122 Abbottabad has received the highest number of hoax and obnoxious calls (5.2 million) in the province within four years of its existence followed by Peshawar with 2.2 million such calls.

The rescuers of Mardan got 0.88 million such calls, Dera Ismail Khan’s 1.02 million, Swat’s 0.34 million, Abbottabad’s 5.2 million, Nowshera’s 0.378 million, Kohat’s 50,456, Haripur 90,912, and Chitral’s 86,094 hoax and obnoxious calls.

The data shows that most calls made to the Rescue 1122 were obnoxious.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2019