ISLAMABAD police have registered around 6,500 criminal cases so far this year. But that is not all.
There were nearly 3,000 other complaints which the police won’t entertain for various reasons, or excuses. Mercifully, aggrieved citizens have the choice to report same to the Police Complaint Cell.
There in the Cell, senior police officers are supposed to investigate the complaints about policemen demanding bribe to favour the complainant or be harsh to his rival, or for not registering an FIR.
But the punishment awarded to a policeman for any wrongdoing does not amount to much. Even those dismissed are later found reinstated.
In fact one assistant sub-inspector of police, accused of forcing a young man into marriage, got promoted after his uncle reported his suspicion that the officer might be behind the disappearance of the young man last September.
That’s the only ‘progress’ made by the Cell since Mohammad Siraj of Kallar Syedan reported to it that his nephew Mohammad Azam, 25, was due to arrive at Islamabad airport from UK on a September day but vanished without a trace, while his mother confirmed that he had boarded the flight in UK as scheduled.
Siraj says the Kural police refused to register his complaint that ASI Javed might have kidnapped Azam, “as he had done six years ago” to force him into a marriage from which he later fled.
Scores of such complaints have been lying with the Cell against policemen of willful negligence of their duties with ulterior motives.
Qazi Ghulam Hussain’s car was stolen - and was recovered. But it was not restored to him.
Instead, he complained, the Criminal Investigation Agency staff handed it to ASI Haider Ali Shah who is unwilling to return to the rightful owner.
Arshad Ahmed, a native of Pakpattan, has complained that Aabpara police implicated his relative in a criminal case and arrested him.
ASI Iftikhar demanded Rs70,000 to release him but sent him to jail after receiving the money.
Police sources said recently that three officers of the Crime Investigation Agency were dismissed or suspended for thrashing and robbing Hikmat Khan, a Peshawar resident, of Rs50,000 at a checkpoint.
More recently, three inspectors, two Sub-Inspectors and a head constable of Islamabad Police were dismissed for corruption and tampering the investigation of a murder.
Their guilt emerged in the reinvestigation of the murder case at the request of citizen Ameer Afzal Khan.
In the reinvestigation, the six policemen claimed they changed the case diaries and statements, deliberately did not seize the murder weapon, and destroyed certain evidence under the pressure and direction of the officers who supervised the investigations.
No action was taken against the supervising officers, however.