ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) has called for stopping what it said irregularities relating to Roznamcha (daily police diary) in almost all police stations in the country. In a press release here on Sunday, the CPDI said it had written three letters to senior federal and provincial police officials demanding steps to stop the violations, but had not received any response.

Under the Police Rules 1934, police officials are required to maintain Roznamchas in all police stations. Under the law the diaries should be maintained on books provided by the respective senior superintendent of police and should be properly numbered.

However, adequate number of books are not issued by the SSP office in many districts, the CDPI said.

As a result, officials of various police stations make their own arrangements by using bundles of papers or books purchased from the market, and this practice allows room for abuse and needs to be immediately stopped, it added.

The CPDI suggested that properly-printed books having serial numbers should be available in adequate numbers and regularly issued to all police stations for maintaining the Roznamchas.

“The police officials use erasable lead pencil to make entries in the Roznamchas. As these entries are not permanent and can be easily removed, police officials often change them to abuse their authority and hence fail the very purpose for which a Roznamcha is maintained.”

The most common abuse relates to the legal requirement that police officials making an arrest must immediately record all relevant facts in the Roznamcha.

This legal requirement is meant to ensure that the arrested person is treated in accordance with the law and is produced in court within 24 hours of the arrest. However, in practice, police officials make such entries with a lead pencil and frequently change them to skip their responsibilities.

It is, therefore, possible that a person is actually arrested much earlier but is shown to be arrested on the Roznamcha much later than the actual date.