ISLAMABAD, Jan 31: Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives Pakistan (CPDI-Pakistan) has strongly opposed the proposal by certain provincial governments to further amend the Police Order 2002 in order to once again bring the investigation wing under the station house officer (SHO).

The proposed amendment will reverse one of the main objectives of the police order, which is to promote specialization and professionalism by, among others, ensuring the separation of investigation and watch and ward functions down to the police station level.

A spokesman for the CPDI-Pakistan in a statement here on Wednesday said the past experience showed that in the absence of clear separation of responsibilities, the main focus of a police stations remained on VIP duties and watch and ward, while investigation functions were given the least priority.

Such a situation, he said, minimised the possibility as well as incentives for the police officers to develop investigation skills as they were simultaneously assigned diverse responsibilities, including investigation and protection and protocol for the so-called VIPs. As a result, the quality of investigation badly suffers, which leads to minimal detection and conviction rates, he added.

The CPDI spokesman said separation of investigation from other duties also established checks and balances at the police station level as it minimised the possibility of SHOs becoming too powerful and working with impunity.

“It is, therefore, a considered view of the CPDI-Pakistan that the proposal to bring investigation wing under the SHO is an ill-conceived one as it would undermine professionalism and harm the public interest,” he said.

The spokesman said the provincial governments needed to look at the attitudes and practices, which continued to undermine the development and efficiency of separated investigation wings. So far, he said, the police leadership at various levels had deliberately kept the investigation wings under-resourced.

He said adequate incentives had not been offered to ensure that honest and competent police officers opted for the investigation wings and contributed to improving the quality of investigation functions.

The spokesman said the provincial governments needed to address the real problems, instead of continuous and unnecessary tinkering of the police order.

“Real challenges include building of adequate investigation capacities, better working conditions for officials at the police station level, security of tenure, improved police-community relations, organisational culture that condones corruption and abuse of authority, transparent and effective functioning of public safety institutions, and accountability of police officers vis-a-vis clearly identified performance indicators.

“It appears from the current attitude of the provincial governments that these are not serious in addressing the real issues and are, instead, focusing on tinkering with the Police

Order 2002, which would cause more harm than good,” he concluded.