FAISALABAD: A case has been registered against 38 policemen, including five sub-inspectors, on charges of stealing 300 official challan files and misusing their authority.

Not a single policeman has been suspended so far despite registration of the case.

Investigation officer of Chak Jhumrah police, inspector Afzal Tahir, is a complainant in the case who nominated the suspected policemen and mentioned the challan file numbers along with number and date of FIRs.

Submitting the complaint, inspector Tahir said the suspected policemen included SIs Irshad Hussain, Khalid Naeem, Abdul Majid, Zeeshan Khalid and Maqsood Ahmed, ASIs Arshad Ali, Mohammad Ishaq, Bashir Ahmed, Hammad Yousaf, Khalid Hussain, Khalid Mehmood, Sarfraz Ahmed, Saeed Anwar, Shahid Pervez, Shahid Yar, Shameer Ahmed, Ashiq Hussain, Atif Shehzad, Abbas Ahmed, Adeel Akram, Ali Ikram, Farooq Nazar, Fateh Sher, Faqir Hussain, Qamar Zaman, Mohsin Abbas, Mohammad Aslam, Mohammad Hamza, Mohammad Sharif, Mohammad Abdullah, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Qasim, Mohammad Nawaz, Waseem, Mohammad Ikram, Mohammad Hamza, Noor Mohammad and Nazar Hussain.

The FIR has been registered under section 380 of PPC and 115-c of Police Order.

Police sources says the registration of a case against a number of policemen shows that the department lacks proper mechanism to keep an eye on the investigation officials so that they couldn’t steal the files to give favour to anyone.

They say it is the need of the hour that a proper software should be developed through which performance of each investigation officer could be checked coupled with submission of the files they had been given for investigation. In this way not a single policeman will be able to take away the official files and in case of any such instances the software will highlight the missing files not submitted by the IO within the stipulated time.

They say across the globe the departments are adopting digital methods whereas in Pakistan the decades-old working methodology is in practice. When contacted SSP (operations) Ali Raza did not respond to the query about action taken against the policemen.

A police officer requesting anonymity tells Dawn that instead of registration of the case a departmental probe is solution to the issue as section 380 of PPC has been invoked which is used against thieves and policemen are not thieves.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2019