FAISALABAD: Touts, or agents or informers, have become a major source of earning an extra buck for policemen as they have been playing a role in getting cases registered, patronising organised crimes like drug-pushing, gambling and brothels.

Finding no special law to contain them and their frequent movements, police high-ups have decided to detain such individuals under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1960 that carries a six-month detention. Faisalabad has 40 police stations covering rural and urban areas.

Sources said police officers had been receiving complaints that a number of station house officers and other policemen were hands in glove with touts who implicated people and got cases registered against them and ran their illegal business that way.

They said dealing with people through touts was easy for policemen as compared to an associate. If caught, a policeman could lose his job, but a tout would face a minor punishment only.

However, there were appropriate sections of law to deal with such persons.

Imran Ali, an alleged victim of a tout, told Dawn a quack had tried to remove his kidney in Dhudiwala in 2012.

After a long battle, he managed to get a case registered against him, he added. However, now police were reluctant to protect witnesses in his case who were being threatened with dire consequences by the suspect.He said police were not taking because the tout had allegedly bribed policemen on behalf of the quack.

Former city police officer (CPO) Dr Usman Anwar had tried his best to stop touts from visiting police stations and had issued a list of them through which he had banned their entry in police stations and declared them persona non-grata.

However, this continued for a few days only and policemen resumed contacts with touts.Usman Ali, a motorcycle mechanic in Ghulam Muhammadabad, told Dawn

touts provided level playing field to policemen who hired their ‘services’ to implicate motorists.

Describing the modus operandi of touts, he said they went to parking lots and placed drugs under a motorcycle seat or in some hole. He added they would then inform police as soon as an occupant left the parking stand with his vehicle.

Ali said a number of times his customers had narrated such stories to him. He said one could find touts hanging around police stations particularly at night.

Farrukh Gulzar Awan, a lawyer, suggesting a solution said police high-ups must take stern action against policemen hanging around or employing touts who were known as “stock-witness” in legal terms. He said only action against touts would not yield results. It is also the need of the hour to form a special law to eliminate this menace, he added.

Hamid Ali, a human rights activist, said police officials created touts for collecting and deciding cases through bribes.

They were being used to settle scores with people. He said officials could save their skins by easily fixing responsibility on touts in case information was leaked or raid by their seniors.

Talking to Dawn, CPO Sohail Habib Tajik said efforts were being made to purge police stations of such elements and touts would now be detained under Section 3 of the MPO.

He said people were being encouraged through different methods to approach police high-ups in case of misconduct by policemen. Cops have been penalised for refusing to register cases, detaining people illegally or receiving bribe directly or indirectly, he added.

Published in Dawn, November 24th , 2014