KARACHI: Sindh Inspec­tor General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon has established regional oversight committees across Sindh to redress grievances of media persons facing police cases, it emerged on Thursday.

These bodies have been established in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mir­pur­khas, Shaheed Benazirabad, and Larkana divisions/regions, and will be headed by respective DIGs and comprised representatives of media organisations, press clubs and human rights organisations as members, according to an order issued by the AIGP Operations Captain Haider Raza.

The provincial police chief took the decision after holding a meeting with office-bearers of the Hyderabad Press Club on Nov 22 where the media persons raised their concern over registration of ‘false’ FIRs against journalists.

They urged him to constitute ‘oversight regional committees’ comprising representatives of police, media and human rights organisations with the mandate to check all such cases registered against journalists and redress their ‘justified’ grievances.

The provincial police chief issued directives for the setting up of range/zonal-level committees under the supervision of range/zonal DIGs, according to the order.

As per the official notification, terms of reference (ToRs) of the committees will be to hold regular meetings to review/process such applications filed by journalists, give a patient hearing to aggrieved journalists, complainants as well as the investigation officer and review the prima facie evidence on record.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2022