LAHORE: The Punjab government has released a first detailed performance report on the heads of the district police of the province based upon 36 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), showing Lahore police at the top by securing 68.84 marks in the Group-1 of five major cities, followed by Gujranwala with 62.25 score.

The three other cities are: Faisalabad 61.65, Multan 50.71 and Rawalpindi 50 marks out of total 100. The government had divided all the districts into three major groups.

According to the report, in the Group-2 which comprised 14 districts, Bhakkar police remained at the top by obtaining 74.37, Mianwali 73.38 and Sargodha district police secured third position by obtaining 71.62 marks.

Mianwali district police secured top position under the command of DPO Mattiullah, showing his outstanding performance in completing the targets set under the given KPIs.

Senior official dispels impression of victimisation or favouritism; says data was re-analysed

Interestingly, he was recently ‘removed’ from his post by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz during her visit to Mianwali on Aug 8 over some ‘public complaints and performance issues’.

In the police circles, the CM’s decision was being taken as ‘controversial’ in the light of the performance report.

Similarly, in the Group-3 that comprised 13 districts, Khanewal police was at the top with 67.90 marks, Chakwal stood second with 66.58 and Khushab secured third position by obtaining 64.89 marks.

An official privy to the development told Dawn that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had for the first time introduced a detailed mechanism to evaluate the performance of the supervisory police officers serving across the province including regional police offices (RPOs) and district police officers (DPOs).

For the purpose, he said, the CM had introduced 36 KPIs that would serve as quantifiable measures of performance and progress towards achieving specific objectives. They would provide a clear and objective way to track success and determine whether goals were being met.

The KPIs included number of registered FIRs, crime control efforts, improvement in investigation of the cases, action against drug suppliers, law and order situation, protection of women and vulnerable groups, complaint handling and accessibility to public, security, public service delivery, special initiatives.

The newly-introduced mechanism further created three zones including the green, blue and red, the official said, adding that the green represents the outstanding performance, blue marginal and red substandard performance of the police officers.

The report was presented by IG Dr Usman Anwar to the CM in a meeting where additional IG special branch Zulfiqar Hameed was also present besides some other senior officers concerned.

During the meeting, Maryam Nawaz hailed the performance of those who secured top positions and also expressed her displeasure for others who remained below the given targets.

The official said the CM warned that the government would remove the DPOs who would constantly fall in the red zones for consecutively three times.

Talking about another interesting aspect of the development, he said that Mandi Bahauddin DPO Ahmad Mohiuddin has been one of the most popular police officers of the province on social media, particularly, on TikTok for his prompt action on the public complaints in open courts.

As the proceedings were given live coverage by his staff, people admired his efforts as ‘hero’ across Punjab.

According to the report, his Mandi Bahauddin district remained at the last position and marked in the red zone for securing lowest 41.53 scores in the Group-3.

About the other low-performing districts, Multan, Rawalpindi of Group-1, Gujrat, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur (Group-2) and Hafizabad, Bahawalnagar and Mandi Bahauddin (Group-3) have been marked in the red zone.

Controversy: The official said that the report dragged some controversies when some RPOs and other police officers raised objections and lodged a protest with the IG claiming that the department has changed the positions while reviewing the data sent by the districts.

Like, he said, the senior police officers claimed that the Gujranwala district police was at the top in the Group-I by securing 85.43 marks out of total 100, followed by Faisalabad 75.40 and Multan 72.88 scores in the first analysis report.

They raised a question over the criteria which reviewed the earlier assessment and asked the IG Punjab to get it inquired at certain levels to dispel the ‘impression of victimisation or favouritism.’

When this reporter contacted a senior police officer in the Central Police Office (CPO), he clarified that the data sent by the districts was re-analysed when the CM issued directions for verification of the statistics by the senior officials.

For this purpose, many senior police officers of grade 21 including additional IGs of investigation, internal accountability branch and head of the Punjab Safe City Authority were assigned the task.

The special branch of the Punjab police accorded final approval to the recommendations of the above-mentioned senior officers and a report was submitted to the CM for final consideration, the official said.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2024