LAHORE: The Punjab Police’s three-day conference on21st century policing and reforms under the Citizen Centric Policing Initiative (CCPI) is beginning from Wednesday (today).

The Punjab Police department has formed various working groups, comprising retired and serving inspectors general of police (IGPs) and additional IGPs, to furnish recommendations for reforms.

For the first time, the retired and serving Muharrars and male and female police officials from lower rank would also be the part of the groups besides, lawyers and the members of the civil society.

The retired IGPs, including Tairq Pervez, Shaukat Javed, Chaudhry Iftikhar, Chaudhry Yaqoob, Ahsan Ghani, are also attending the conference to lead the groups/panels.

IGP Inam Ghani will chair the conference. The United State Institute of Peace (USIP) is coordinating with the Punjab Police to hold it.

The key speakers would furnish recommendations for reforms, particularly at the police station level to provide relief to the citizens.

“The conference will kick off with an opening ceremony today (Wednesday) at Lahore Police Club while the closing ceremony on Feb 12 would also be held at the same point,” Punjab Police Information Officer (PPIO) DIG Sohail Akhtar Sukhera toldDawnon Tuesday. However, the second day session of the conference would be held at the Central Police Office.

Mr Sukhera said the conference would help bring about ‘21th century marathon police reforms’.

He added that the event would consist of three committees that would meet on three days to put forward recommendations to the government in the closing ceremony.

According to DIG Sukhera, the first committee, prioritising police stations as hubs of citizen-centric policing, would identify and develop recommendations for ‘place (location and accessibility), perception (first impression of the public), personnel (HR within the Thana) and performance’ at the police station level to promote citizen-centric policing.

The second committee would develop recommendations for various processes at the police station level, including emergency response, community engagement, FIRs, investigation, public relation, check-post interactions etc, that served as a mechanism of interaction with the public.

The third working group would furnish strategies for promoting gender mainstreaming within the police with a focus on recruitment, retention, mechanisms and policies that could promote more gender sensitive policing, Mr Sukhera concluded.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2021