KARACHI, July 15: The new police system dividing the city into three administrative zones and reducing the operational towns from 19 to 16 will be in place here from Monday.

Under the new set-up, Landhi, North Nazimabad and SITE towns were merged with Korangi, Orangi and Baldia, respectively, the newly-appointed Inspector-General of Sindh Police Ziaul Hasan said while addressing a press conference at the Police Headquarters, Garden, here on Sunday.

Formally announcing the division of police zones, he said this was aimed at reorganizing the police set-up and bringing reforms in the system in accordance with the Police Order 2002.

It may be recalled here that former Sindh IGP Jehangir Mirza had once said that there was no provision for the division of city into three zones and appointment of three DIGs in the Police Order 2002 unless an amendment was made to it.

Mr Hasan also hinted at the failure of system under which operations and investigations wings were functioning separately when he said the chief minister had shown his reservations about the performance of investigation police and complained about aggravating public grievances. With the appointment of Supervisory Police Officers in the new set-up, the operations and investigations wings stand virtually merged. Under the DIG command of their respective zone, the SPOs will monitor both operations and investigations of every two police stations.