LAHORE: Punjab Inspector General of Police Dr Usman Anwar has nominated 10 police officers, including two women officers, to compete for the World Summit Award-2024 for showing excellence in various categories.

The nominated officers of the Punjab Police submitted their respective papers and case studies to be considered for the award to the international agency holding the event through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) here on December 8, the deadline given for the purpose.

The competition will be held at Dubai from 7 to 9 of March 2024 and the winners of the international award will also be honoured at a gala dinner with the international policing professionals.

The organising agency had sought nominations against ten categories, including excellence in anti-narcotics programmes, excellence in forensic science, innovative police force, road safety, best app of the year, criminal investigation, customer service, people of determination excellence, inspiring female officer and good Smaritan.

According to the official documents, two female police officers – SSP Ayesha Butt, ASP Gulberg circle, Lahore, and two district police officers (DPOs) – Essa Khan Sukhera and Faisal Kamran – were also among the 10 officers nominated by the IG for the competition.

Similarly, two regional police officers (RPOs), three DIGs and the Lahore chief traffic officer (CTO) are also among the nominated police officers. The IG had held a series of meetings exclusively on the matter and shortlisted the names of the officers from across the province after evaluating their performance against each category.

Category of Innovative Police Force

Multan RPO Sohail Chaudhry was nominated against the said category for establishing 33 Special Initiative Police Stations (SIPSs) to provide time-based services to the public and the setting up Police Khidmat Marakazs where 2.6 million people were provided basic services through one-window facilitation model since January 2023.

Similarly, facilities were set up throughout the Multan range which focused on cases of gender based violence. This initiative starting from Multan has now been replicated all over the province.

Under the initiative, the transgenders who would faced ridicule and harassment earlier have now centres to resolve their mundane issues and can also find a reasonable source of income.

Additionally, purpose-built Mesaq Centres were also established in Multan range to look after the rights of minorities. This initiative gained much attention and appreciation from the minority communities when over 100,000 members of the minorities were facilitated at these centres in a short span of the last three months only.

Good Samaritan Category

The IG nominated Vehari DPO Muhammad Essa Khan against this category for rendering services for rehabilitation of drug addicts by launching a pilot project which was later replicated all over the province.

In two phases, the DPO got 80 drug addicts picked up from roads and shifted them to Rural Health Centres to ensure 24/7 medical supervision.

The homeless addicts disowned by society were lying on roads and green belts of the city. The only means of their survival was to depend on petty crimes.

A team of senior medics was hired, drug addicts underwent screening tests and those diagnosed with HIV were separated.

An NGO working specifically on HIV-infected drug addicts was taken on board. Notables and philanthropists from the community were engaged to arrange for their medicine, food and clothing, under the project.

Prior to this project, the police helpline data had revealed that in the year 2022 and 2023, there were 51 cases reported regarding unclaimed dead bodies of drug addicts found on road and most of them were less than 45 years of age.

Due to the project, all the 80 addicts became absolutely normal, productive members of society and rejoined their families. They were also offered jobs according to their qualifications and skills. The IG Punjab had awarded the DPO letter of appreciation as the project was replicated across 36 districts of Punjab.

Excellence in Forensic Science

RPO Faisalabad Dr Abid Khan was shortlisted for this category for tracing a famous case of a serial killer in 2021 who had allegedly raped six minor girls.

The police under his supervision as city police officer of Faisalabad resolved the rape cases using scientific methods. The DNA also matched and the strong evidence helped the court to award the culprit death sentence on multiple counts.

He also traced another similar rape case recently as RPO Faisalabad and got arrested the accused. The DNA and other scientific evidence have been collected to take the accused to the court of law for punishment.

Best Police App of the Year

The Punjab Police became the first police organisation in Pakistan to start a citizen feedback app for the provision of its services to them.

DIG IT Ahsan Younas played a decisive role in developing and launching the app and the Punjab Police issued a QR code for feedback to the citizens, along with the services offered to them. They could give their feedback by scanning the print QR code.

Similarly, DIG Operations Lahore Ali Nasir Rizvi was nominated against excellence in anti-narcotics programmes, DIG Athar Waheed against excellence in road safety, Lahore CTO Mustansar Feroze excellence in customer service, while Sargodha DPO Faisal Kamran was nominated against the category of excellence in criminal investigation.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2023