LAHORE, March 25: Complainants from Sheikhupura, Okara and Kasur are facing a great deal of hardship at the Sheikhupura range DIG's office in Lahore due to short time allocated for hearing of complaints.

According to officials, DIG Saqlain Naqvi has fixed half an hour i.e 12:30pm to 1pm for listening to the plaints and issuing orders on applications. The applicants coming from far-flung areas of the three districts after 1pm have to return to their homes empty-handed, as they are asked by DIG's assistants to come again the next day.

On the other hand, the visitors, who succeed in reaching there around 9am, have to wait for more than three hours to meet the DIG. An elderly women, a victim of highhandedness of an Okara police station, said she left her home around 7am and reached here at 1:30pm.

"But a DIG's assistant has advised me to come tomorrow," she said with a visible grief on her wrinkled face. Hundreds of poor applicants, including women, visit the DIG's office situated in the Qurban Lines near the Sherpao Bridge daily with a hope of having a prompt action on their plaints.

Many of them, being unaware of the strict deadline of the DIG office, get late because of long travel distance and poor transportation modes.

A middle-aged complainant told this agency that former DIG Tariq Saleem Dogar used to hear complaints three to four times during a day. In fact, he had highly flexible timings for hearing the plaints, he said, adding: "I always found his doors open to the helpless applicants."

Meanwhile, a number of complainants appealed to the Punjab chief minister and the provincial police chief to take effective steps to alleviate their ordeal. -PPI