LAHORE, Aug 14: The anti-vehicle lifting staff (AVLS) of the Lahore capital city district police will computerise data on stolen or snatched vehicles.
The data will also be available to police of 114 districts across the country on Internet. The access to the data will be made through usernames and password.
Superintendent of Police (crimes record office) Sarfraz Ahmed Falki has given a presentation to capital city police officer Malik Muhammad Iqbal and Deputy Inspector General (investigation) Tassaduq Hussain about the project, sources told Dawn.
Officials said the AVLS would face many problems at pickets to find the record of vehicles from the pile of registers. At times the record was not updated and the process of searching record would take a lot of time.
Other factors that made the AVLS’ performance poor were the shortage of staff, no professional development of staff and non-availability of the latest equipment to trace stolen or snatched vehicles, they said.
An average of 1,500 vehicles are stolen or snatched every year in the country.
In the first phase of the programme, eight vehicles equipped with laptop have been given to the staff. The record of about 150,000 stolen or snatched vehicles is on these computers.
Upto 20 officials of the anti-vehicle staff have been trained by the CRO branch to use laptops and application.
One senior official with two trained constables each are deployed at 16 vehicle check points (VCPs) at entry and exit points of the city.
VCPs have been set up on the either sides of Old Ravi Bridge, New Ravi Bridge, Saggian Bridge, Shera Kot, Mohlanwal, Thokar Niaz Baig-Motorway, Gaju Matta and Bho Battian. Sources said VCPs would also be set up in other areas of the city as well.
Sources said a central control room would be set up at the CRO office to monitor the performance of VCPs on a weekly basis.
In the phase two, centralised record of stolen or snatched vehicles will be available on Internet to police officials in other districts.
Sources said the AVLS had an access to data on excise and taxation of Lahore district only but in near future excise data of all Punjab districts would go online with the help of the Punjab Information Technology Department.
A research and analysis wing will also be set up in the second phase which will submit reports about trends in vehicles-related crimes and snatchers’ sketches.
Sources said the AVLS needed 20 cars with laptops, tracking system, a control room with latest a digital map for crime mapping and monitoring and 150 I-pods.
The Lahore AVLS has 92 officials while it needs a total of 515 officials to curb vehicle thefts, sources said. —Muhammad Faisal Ali