FAISALABAD: A five-member committee of senior police officers has detected that faulty investigations were conducted in more than fifty per cent of cases of PARCO oil theft worth of millions of rupees.

The committee recommended re-investigation of all the cases registered with different police stations.

Regional Police Officer Raja Riffat Mukhtar formed this board and said a dispassionate analysis of last five years’ cases relating to Parco oil theft shows substandard investigation, non-arrest of accused having connivance of the police officials, which is encouraging factor for the criminal gangs. At the same time police officials have not been taken to task due to improper inquiries/disciplinary proceedings, as a result of which unscrupulous elements and black sheep in the garb of police uniform indulged in their nefarious designs, reads the order.

He had to form the committee following the direction of a Lahore High Court judge on July 14 last in a case (1077/19) registered with the Thekariwala police on Dec 12, 2019.

As many as 113 cases were registered with different police stations during a period from 2015 to 2020.

During scrutiny of these case files, the committee detected 69 cases with faulty investigations. It detected that investigation was carried out by non-technical/non-experienced investigation officers mostly of the rank of the ASIs. Inordinate delay was observed in registration of some cases both on the part of PARCO and police as well.

Neither crime scene was oversighted properly nor were the relevant articles taken into possession accordingly. No steps had been taken for lifting fingerprints from crime scene. Instruments and other material used for oil theft were not sent for forensic analysis.

Property/land used for oil theft was not identified in terms of mutation number, street number, property number etc. No relevant information was collected from the revenue department regarding ownership etc.

The owner/lessee of surrounding land/property was not associated during investigation proceedings. Instruments/tanks used for tampering/theft were taken into custody but nothing in this regard was incorporated in most of the case files. The individuals involved in purchasing/disposal of stolen oil were neither identified nor proceeded against accordingly.

Many of the arrested accused were challaned without recovery of stolen property. The loss to government exchequer was neither informed by complainant of the case nor determined during the course of investigation. During interrogation of arrested accused, they were not asked about their accomplices. No steps were taken even for the arrest of nominated accused.

CDRs of the accused were not taken and the CRO office was also not taken on board for obtaining record of the accused/gangs. Instead of tracing real culprits, untraced reports were prepared.

In case of transfer of an investigation officer, the case file was not marked to any other officer. After preparation, reports under section 173 CrPC were not submitted to prosecution department timely.

The committee also observed that the complainants of the cases also did not take interest in the cases.

Investigations of the 69 cases have been entrusted to the DSPs who have been directed to reinvestigate these cases with the help of forensic/material based collection of evidence, arrest of accused and expeditious finalization of investigation.

As the preventive measure the committee said a Whatsapp group headed by SSP Operations had been formed for sharing immediate information of oil theft followed by prompt action by the concerned tiers.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2020