PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police launched digitisation of its complaint redressal system here on Thursday in line with the prime minister’s vision of Digital Pakistan.

KP police chief Dr Sanaullah Abbasi launched the digitisation of police complaint redressal system (PCRS) in a function held at the central police office.

According to a statement here, the event was attended by the regional and district police officers from all over the province and merged districts.

In his speech, Dr Abbasi said the new system was a step in the right direction for the KP police. He said their objective was to provide speedy access to justice to all citizens of province, including merged districts.

“After lengthy internal deliberations, we initiated this project to reach out to vulnerable groups, especially women, girls, youth, and minorities and now they can reach out to us from the comfort of their homes,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Adnan Rafiq, country director of the United States Institute for Peace, said there was an imminent need to bridge the trust deficit between the public and the police.

He said the digitisation of the PCRS was a step in a series of steps which were needed to improve the overall situation of trust deficit, provision of swift justice to the vulnerable population, and mould the policing approach in Pakistan into a more citizen-centric one.

The statement said that as a first of a kind policing initiative in Pakistan, the PCRS would make it accessible for the public to reach the police through social media integration (WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter), mobile app for public to register and track complaints, single SMS short code for public (8855), a toll-free helpline for public (0800-004000), etc.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2021