Police hand over duties to private guards

The blockades, barriers and pickets having failed to check the rising crime rate in the capital city, the police have decided to deploy security guards to keep watch in urban areas and revive the old system of thekri pehra (watchman) in rural areas. This would amount to handing over police responsibilities to private security companies in urban areas and local chowkidars in villages.

Explaining the failure of the barriers and pickets, police authorise maintain that the measures were not meant to check ordinary crime but to prevent terrorist activities. The measure did help prevent suspicious people from entering the capital but since there was no check on people leaving the city from the exit points it could have helped shady characters in escaping from the city.

Senior police officers do recognise that security duties consumed the energies and resources of their department to the detriment of the common citizens leaving them on the mercy of the criminals. Statistics show that crime increased during the period police were concentrating on fighting terrorists.

Now they have decided to make some amends and have been designing different strategies to curb crime, such as robberies, burglaries and auto-theft. Some officers also realised that it was impossible for the police alone to curb ordinary crime. Therefore, the security guards and watchmen systems are planned to be introduced by station house officers of the capital in their respective areas.

A summary in this regard has been forwarded to the authorities concerned for approval. Under the system, security guards will be deployed in urban areas and the residents of the localities will arrange money to pay for their services. The police will remain vigilant at all the entry and exit points of the sectors, and the city. The old watchman (Thekri Pehra) system will be adopted in the rural areas. Under the system, the residents of the rural areas will guard their respective areas. They will select people from every house in their locality who would keep vigil by turns.

The capital police are also collecting personal details of domestic servants as well as office servants to build a database that will help in curbing crimes and avert terrorist activities. For this purpose, a set of detailed forms has been designed to survey domestic servants. Another set of forms will be given to owners of buildings under use of sensitive agencies and departments.

Though crimes have been on the increase in the capital, it appears that the West Circle has been hit hard by the activities of sundry criminals with more reported cases of robberies, burglaries, street crime and vehicle theft.

One of the reasons behind the comparatively lower crime rate in the East Circle is that most of its parts have been cordoned off for security reasons. Yet this area has witnessed most of the terrorist attacks compared to other circles of the federal capital.

During investigations into thefts and burglaries, mostly house servants were found involved in the crime, as they either committed the offence themselves or informed the criminals about the financial status of the owner, his/her security measures and the best time to strike.

Twenty officials at each police station will be tasked with collecting the data, and a team, comprising four police officers, would be responsible in a sub-sector.

The police have also started a survey of areas with a higher degree of crime so that they could be given priority in the data collection process.

Another form has been designed to collect the data of important buildings and sensitive installations. In accordance with this survey, police would issue security advisories to the building owners and employers to avert crime and acts of terror.

Now that a respite on the terror front has taken some burden off the shoulders of the Islamabad police of providing security to the VIPs, their homes and places of work, the hope is that the force would pay greater attention to protecting the citizens at large.