LAHORE: Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Fayyaz Ahmad Dev says station house officers (SHOs) in Lahore will visit door-to-door, streets, markets, and bazaars on foot to know about public problems to improve “a soft image of the police”.

The foot patrol is an important part of modern policing, he told Dawn after inaugurating the new building of the Factory Area police station on Friday.

Mr Dev said the Lahore police had been directed to take back the police personnel from senior officers provided to them against the laid down policy. The retrieved personnel would be posted in police stations, he said, adding the department has also been directed to enhance patrolling.

CCPO hints at introducing standard design for police stations

He said maximum resources would be allocated to 85 police stations of the city, adding that in modern policing the police station was a basic unit that must be strengthened to achieve desired targets.

He said in the future, raids would be carried out jointly by operations and investigation wings to reduce the risk of injuries or any physical loss to the police, adding that standard guidelines have been issued to all the police officers to follow the same while carrying out raids for the arrest of the hardened and other criminals.

“We have also decided to introduce a standard design and infrastructure of the police station buildings of Lahore,” Dev said.

The prime theme of the initiative is to give an identity to police station buildings in the provincial capital.

Six more such multi-storey buildings are also under construction, which are Qila Gujar Singh, Gawalmandi, Faisal Town, Ravi and Chuhng police stations. He said he had directed the officers to complete the police station buildings by the end of December.

The Factory Area police station has four storeys and 42 rooms, which house front desk, community guide room, three lockups for males and females, six residential barracks for the police station staff, kitchen, Mess and a Gymnasium. The building cost Rs100.3m. He said the new building was a beautiful addition to the existing modern infrastructure of the provincial capital police.

The CCPO said the staff of the police station would have to change their behaviour while discharging functions in the conducive environment provided in the new building.

He said the priorities have been changed with the passage of time with a focus on strengthening police stations for being basic unit of the police and this would help change the ‘thana culture’.

Dev highlighted the important role of citizens centric policing in crime control and maintenance of law and order in the city. “Anywhere in the world, police cannot get any success in crime control without cooperation and support of public,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2021