FAISALABAD, Dec 28: The provincial home department has decided to set up 1,500 check-posts on highways and other inter-city roads to check the increasing number of dacoities and vehicle-snatching incidents.

A police source said here on Saturday that Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, at a meeting with the home secretary and Punjab IGP recently, took notice of complaints about the escalating incidence of heinous crimes in the province especially in big cities. The chief minister asked the officers to prepare a comprehensive plan for protecting the lives and properties of people.

The home department directed the police highups to establish checkpoints on highways so that the incidence of robberies could be curtailed. The special police posts would start functioning next week.

The checkpoints would be set up every 25km on the highways and would be manned by 12 to 14 policemen headed by a sub-inspector or assistant sub-inspector. These check-posts would have direct communication links with the rescue centres of police and other emergency help-lines.

Source further revealed that the IGP had also directed all district police officers to launch a special campaign within their jurisdiction to arrest suspects and habitual offenders.

A senior police officer on condition of anonymity told this reporter that police officials should enhance patrolling within their jurisdiction to maintain law and order instead of setting up more pickets, which was something that had always proved futile.

It may be noted here that Punjab police had recently removed a number of police posts from highways following complaints about misbehaviour and highhandedness of police personnel deployed there. A number of police posts that had been set up in cities and villages without the approval of authorities concerned were also removed.

A couple of years ago, the Punjab police dissolved all peace and crime control committees comprising “notables” of the areas. These were now being reintroduced in some districts of the province “just to please close associates of police highups and adjust cronies of the big guns,” the source alleged.