LAHORE: Inspector General of Punjab Police Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera has said the combing operation across Punjab is going on while 60,497 search operations had been conducted during the last two years.

Speaking to TV anchors in a meeting held at the provincial police office here on Thursday, the IGP said at least 2,017,594 suspects were questioned and 11,194 cases registered during the search operations.

The IGP said that sectarianism in Punjab was completely under control while terrorism incidents had decreased from 19 in 2015 to seven in 2016 (till Aug 25).

He said that 706 police officers/officials embraced martyrdom and 464 received injuries as of now during terrorism activities and in line of duty.

He said that he himself had come under attack thrice during his tenure as IGP in Balochistan.

Mr Sukhera claimed it happened first time in Punjab that all DSPs had been appointed on merit and were picked from the “A” category.

He said, under the new policy, no DSP would be appointed at his home district and no-one would be posted at the same district where he had served for 10 years.

“Since the service-oriented police equipped with latest technology is the need of hour to make the province crime-free, the Punjab police have been computerized while all transfers/postings besides payment of salaries is being made through this system,” he said.

The IGP said that according to the international standard, London was spending 750 dollars per capita on security expenditures, Turkey 135 and East Punjab (India) 16 while Punjab (Pakistan) was spending only seven dollars.

He said the volume of FIRs per police station had increased from 50 to 2,000 per month, but the Punjab police were discharging its duties diligently and efficiently despite financial limitations.

Mr Sukhera said the Punjab police, for the improvement of investigation system and to make it more effective, were moving towards specialization.

He said the establishment of homicide units by utilizing latest technical kits for collection of accurate evidences made the investigation more advance and authentic.

He claimed that heinous crime like murder had been reduced by 6pc due to the excellent performance of investigation officers of these homicide units.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2016