KARACHI: Newly appointed city police chief, Additional Inspector General (Addl. IG) Ghulam Nabi Memon has said that the main purpose of traffic police is to regulate traffic not generate revenue.

Talking to Dawn, he said as part of his long-term strategy to ensure smooth flow of traffic and prevent prolong and agonising traffic jams in the metropolis, he had taken back powers to issue tickets over traffic violations from every traffic policeman and now only Section Officers (SOs) could impose fines.

He was of the view that the indiscriminate exercise by all traffic policemen for checking traffic violations was partly responsible for traffic problems in the metropolis.

City police chief Memon, who had earlier served in the same position, said there was a lack of ‘discipline’ as every constable or head constable, whenever he wanted, started checking traffic violations on every road that caused hindrances in the smooth flow of traffic.

Orders SHOs to immediately register FIRs; says revenue generation is not traffic police’s job

In order to bring some discipline in the subject exercise, initially senior officers in traffic had been empowered to impose fines, he said and added that in next phase, some other police officers — probably not below the rank of inspector and sub-inspector — would be notified to impose fines on violations.

The city police chief declared that constables and head constables would not be allowed to issue challans (fines) over violation of traffic laws. When there was ‘free for all’ moment for all traffic policemen to impose fines, it tended to cause blockade of the traffic.

“Regulation of traffic is more important than imposing fines,” he said, adding that the traffic flow would be improved if checking would be carried out in a better way not in an indiscriminate way.

“It was wrong if the purpose of traffic police was to impose fines and generate revenue instead of regulating traffic,” he observed.

Role of SHOs in investigation of street crime

Regarding unabated street crimes in the provincial capital, the city police chief believed that there was lack of understanding between the operation wing of the police and investigation branch and different units of the police dealing with host of crimes.

He suggested that this ‘disconnect’ had partly compounded the problem of street crime in the city.

As part of the new strategy, SHOs had been given responsibility of obtaining CCTV footage, collecting evidence and identifying the suspects/accused in coordination with the investigation branch of the police.

He regretted that as past practice, the SHOs only got FIRs registered in case of vehicles lifting or cell phone snatching, and investigation was assigned to others.

He maintained that the performance of SHOs, DSPs and SSPs both of operational and investigation wings would be assessed on a weekly and monthly basis to ascertain as to how many CCTV footage were obtained and suspects/accused identified, and to what extent detection of crimes carried out.

Mr Memon pointed out that under relevant sections of the Sindh Security of Vulnerable Establishments Act of 2015, the law enforcers had managed to install 30,000 cameras at petrol pumps, big shops and other such vulnerable places in the city recently, and the police would persuade owners of such vulnerable establishments to do so for identification of criminals.

Delays in FIRs benefit criminals

Another problem that helped criminals was the delay in registration of FIRs as SHOs concerned did not get FIR registered on time in order to hide their performance.

“Because of this disconnect, when the criminals got arrested, fake cases were registered against them leading to their acquittal by courts,” he said.

It had been observed that the SHOs tended to delay FIRs for two-three days and such a delay appeared to be one of the major reasons behind acquittal of the criminals as courts gave ‘benefit of doubt’ to them.

He said directions had been issued to the SHOs to get FIRs registered immediately.

He said ‘free and immediate registration’ of FIRs might give rise to increase in data of crimes in the city, but hiding of crimes gives benefit to the criminals.

The police chief revealed that Lahore was smaller city as compared to Karachi, but annually 200,000 crimes were reported there. In contrast, there were annually 45,000 crimes in Karachi in year 2020, but it increased up to 84,000 crimes in year 2021 when the police persuaded the victims of crimes to get FIRs registered.

He hoped when FIRs would be registered on time, the major reason behind acquittal of the criminals would also likely to be ended.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022