KARACHI, Feb 4: The federal government has sent a draft of the proposed Police Act 2002, which will replace the existing Police Act 1861, to the Sindh government for comments and suggestions after which it will be enforced.

Speaking at a seminar on “Discussion on police reform” at the Saleem Wahidi auditorium in the driving licence branch on Monday evening, the interior minister, Moinuddin Haider, said the copies of the draft had also been sent to the Sindh police. He said many officers in the police force had served abroad and they could suggest improvements in the draft.

The provincial police chief, Syed Kamal Shah, and the home secretary, Mukhtar Ahmed, also spoke. City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, the city police chief, Asad Jehangir, Karachi DIG (operation) Tariq Jamil, and the chief of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee, Jamil Yusuf, attended the seminar.

Mr Haider stressed the importance of appointing talented people on merit in the police force, saying that “no one should be appointed in violation of merit”. He underlined the need for making the process of recruitment transparent and credible so that the government could meet the expectation of the people. He said there was a lot of talent in the country as more than 30,000 applications had been received for 1,500 vacant posts of assistant sub-inspectors.

He also stressed the need for imparting training in true spirit. He said a master plan for each police training institute had been evolved and gradually things would improve. He said the police officers, who were imparting training, would be given accommodation, their salaries would be increased, and their duty would be treated as field service.

Acknowledging that the country was lagging behind in forensic investigation, the interior minister said the government had approached two Pakistani forensic experts working in the US for the past two decades. The government had prepared a master plan for improvement in forensic investigation with the assistance of these two Pakistani experts. The government knew that the police was in need of equipment, as well as vehicles, to be used in investigation. The government would gradually provide the police with funds to purchase the vehicles and other necessary equipment.

The government had planned to allocate Rs1.4 billion for the police force in the country to enable it to purchase vehicles as some police stations in the interior of Sindh were without any vehicles.

About investigation, he said the government had worked out that there were 1,250 police stations in the country and they required Rs800 million for investigation in murder cases. The government would allocate the fund in the budget to facilitate people as there were numerous complaints that when a complainant reached a police station to lodge a complaint, he was asked to make arrangements for transport.

He said the government would enforce an organized system of checks and balance in the police for which a public safety commission and a police complaint authority would be established soon.

The salaries of the police officials had recently been increased and the government was considering a further increase in their salary structure, he added.

He said the government had set priorities and the direction to move forward and convert the police force into a police service. He asked the police officials to discharge their duties with honesty and dedication and bring a change in their attitude.

The interior minister asked the Sindh IG to take action against those police officials who carry weapons openly in plain clothes.