LAHORE: The Punjab Police have replicated the court’s system of summoning the people for investigation or inquiry to police stations through serving them with ‘sommon notices’ instead of contacting them on mobile phones or dispatching policemen to their homes/workplaces for the purpose.

The department has also declared registration of summon notices in Register 5/A mandatory in order to make the entire process transparent to facilitate the defendants.

Inspector General of Police Punjab Inam Ghani approved the new scheme on Friday to be implemented at the police stations of Rawalpindi, DG Khan and Mianwali districts as a pilot project. The police stations in the three districts have been declared as ‘special initiative police stations.

The IGP issued directions to prepare software for digital monitoring of attendance of the citizens or suspects being called for investigation by January 2021 in order to replicate the same system across the province.

The pilot project was launched after City Police Officer Rawalpindi Ahsan Younas prepared the draft of the scheme on the IGP’s directions.

While approving the programme in a meeting at the Central Police Office, the IGP said the citizens should not be called for investigation by the police without summons. He added that software for digital attendance of officers and personnel of the force should be developed and launched by January 2021 in all police stations. During the meeting, the regional police officers of Rawalpindi, DG Khan and Sargodha briefed the IGP on completion and results of various projects.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2020