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KARACHI, July 18: Demonstrating what can only be termed pure genius, the inspector general (IG) police of Sindh has tasked station house officers (SHOs) to set up “reporting centres” at their police stations without allocating any funds for the purpose. This has left SHOs scrambling to generate funds “through their own resources,” according to one official.
In the first press conference held after he assumed office, Sindh IG Ziaul Hasan Khan announced that reporting centres would be set up in all police stations in the city. The rationale was explained at subsequent meetings, where Mr Khan observed that since complainants often face a hostile environment at police stations, well-trained staff should be available at the reporting centres.
Orders issued later by the police hierarchy directed town police officers to ensure that the reporting centres have comfortable chairs instead of the traditional benches, that smoking is prohibited on the premises and most importantly, every centre is air-conditioned. Instead of the old duty officers, the new centres are to have “reporting officers.”
However, no mention is made of where the funds to set up and run these highfalutin reporting centres will come from.
As a result, the SHOs of Karachi’s 96 police stations are busy generating funds through “their own resources” in order to accomplish an assignment that has been given top priority.
A town police officer told Dawn that since no funds had been provided to establish these centres, SHOs were working “on a self-help basis.” On condition of anonymity, a senior police official said that since SHOs received certain sums of money under different heads from their jurisdictions, generating resources would not pose too much of a problem.
It is worth remembering that in the past, Karachi has experimented with a number of similar initiatives such as model police stations, women’s police stations and drop boxes for first information reports (FIRs). All of these have met with failure. As one police officer pointed out, “investments should be made in human resource and training, instead of superficial or cosmetic measures that often prove short-lived.”
Furthermore, “a well-decorated and air-conditioned environment will hardly matter to the complainant if he is not being provided relief,” observed Mohammad Shamim, who is visiting a police station regularly these days in context of a dispute.
The IG Sindh was not available to comment on the issue.
