PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Dr Sanaullah Abbasi on Wednesday launched a plan to improve the quality of investigation in criminal cases in the province while focusing on investigation standards, inspections and capacity building through training and forensics support.

Speaking at an event at the Police School of Investigation, Mr Abbasi said that improving service delivery, particularly in investigation, was a key priority of the KP police, in line with the provincial government’s commitment to reform the Criminal Justice System.

A statement issued here referred to the systemic weaknesses in conducting effective investigations mostly as a result of lack of standards in investigations, weaknesses in crime scene preservation and evidence collection, etc, and said that the Justice System Support Programme had been providing technical assistance to the KP police to overcome such challenges.

It said that in the light of Supreme Court’s direction to constitute district assessment committees and improve investigations, the reform package included a Common Training Programme for police investigators and prosecutors.

The programme is aimed at police-prosecution coordination and building capacity of the investigation officers.

Similarly, the reform package included improving the supervision of investigation by police officers through investigation standards and new inspection protocols, enhancing capacity of the investigators through training on the core skills to use forensic evidence.

The statement said that the existing cost of investigation budget was calculated on the basis of rates decided in 2007, which was insufficient.

It said that under the directives of IGP the rates had been revised keeping in view the actual costs and the finance department would be urged to allocate the cost of investigation budget as per the revised rates.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2020