RAWALPINDI: Additional Inspector General (AIG) of Police Rawalpindi Division Ishfaq Ahmad Khan has taken a serious note of the district police’s lack of interest in arresting proclaimed offenders and court absconders as, according to him, their arrests have fallen in comparison to past years.

In a directive to the City Police Officer Sajid Kiani, the AIG Rawalpindi Division Ishfaq Ahmed Khan also directed to seek travel history of the absconders who had left the country so that their red warrants could be obtained from the Interpol.

The Regional Police Officer (RPO) after reviewing the police performance in arresting POs and court offenders said 384 absconders of category ‘A’ were arrested in 2020 as against 342 arrested in 2021.

In category ‘B’, 2,445 proclaimed and court offenders were arrested in 2020, which fell to 2,322 in 2021. It showed lack of interest and concentration of field officers, said the AIG.

The RPO instructed the CPO to personally label all fugitives for police investigating officers not only to fulfill the January objective, but it should be twice that of the previous year’s similar period.

“You should personally supervise the target to ensure the arrests of fugitives,” said the RPO in his directive.

He also urged the police officers to review the cases registered in their respective districts and check the details of accused who were yet to be arrested, those who have not obtained pre-arrest bails or those who have not been cleared in the police investigation so far.

The AIG also noted that the CNIC numbers of all those fugitives should be obtained because the CNICs of such individuals are not being uploaded on Police Station Record Management System.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2022