FAISALABAD: The district police could not resolve 95 murder cases from 2017 to 2019 and declared them ‘untraced’.

According to data, 36 murder cases registered in 2017 remained blind, 35 in 2018, and 24 in 2019.

Majority of such cases belong to rural police stations, such as Chak Jhumra, Sadar, Bahlak, Sattiana, Sadar Tandlianwala, Jaranwala, Thekariwala, Dijkot, Sahianwala, Tarkhani, Rodala Road, Sandal Bar and Lundianwala.

City Police Officer (CPO) Sohail Chaudhry has formed committees to ascertain facts regarding blind murder cases. Murder accused who would remain at large may commit heinous crimes again.

In the past, a number of station house officers (SHOs) have been penalised for fudging crime statistics, however, they managed to get postings only to follow the same practices with impunity.

An SHO requesting anonymity said IOs needed huge funds to investigate a murder case whereas the department allocated Rs20,000 to investigate a murder case. He said and the amount was insufficient as they had to raid places, pay to informers, arrange food for the detained persons, travel to appear before senior officials.

He said all officials were well aware of the fact and that’s why investigation officers preferred to put hard murder cases on the back burners, saying that they did not find any clue to detect the killers.

He said the police kept on pursuing murder cases as complainants would pay traveling and other expenses for the investigators.

Another officer said that majority of IOs lacked skills to trace blind murders. He said it was the responsibility of the senior officials and policymakers to arrange training and scientific mechanism for investigators so as to conclude cases in the light of scientific evidence.

He said the IOs were also overburdened as they had to deal with multiple murder cases simultaneously. Similarly, IOs were also to appear before officials and courts as well, he said, adding that till the removal of such obstacles the number of untraced murder cases would increase.

IOs have to resolve a murder case within three months and cannot declare them untraced without seeking the permission of senior officers.

A police officer said that some inefficient police officials were serving in the district due to the shortage of officials. He said policemen from other districts had been posted in Faisalabad but this did not yield the required results and some of them managed to get their posting back to their parent districts.

The CPO told Dawn he had formed special teams to reopen the investigation to ensure justice. He said there could not be any crime greater than murder but it’s an irony that IO had declared a large number of cases untraced. He said the monitoring of such cases would be ensured regularly.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2020