MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 22: The AJK government has made some amendments in the Police Rules 1934, in line with the Police Reforms, to provide mechanism for the withdrawal of money from the national exchequer to be spent as cost of crime investigation.

According to a notification issued here on Saturday by the home department, some insertions in sub rules (1) (2) of rule 10.105 were made to provide the withdrawal of money for emergent petty advances of all kinds as well as investigation cost of the cases. Similarly, a new clause (d) was added in sub rule (2) of rule 10.106, which says “a deputy superintendent of police, in charge investigation branch, shall draw the cost incurred during the process of investigation of cases or matters connected therewith, himself or through the DDO (drawing disbursing officer) investigation, as the case may be.”

The notification also included 19 heads for which the already worked-out amount could be drawn and spent. Some of these heads were transportation of body and the authorized medical officer to the mortuary for postmortem examination; preparation of site plan through a draftsman; conduct of raid for the arrest of criminals in other parts or same district and their transfer etc; transportation of the accused to and from the courts; dispatch of the articles collected from the scene of any crime to different laboratories for examination, etc.

AJK’s deputy inspector-general police (headquarters) Faheem Ahmed Khan termed the step as a major breakthrough, expressing the hope that it would not only help speed up the investigating process, but also remove complaints of extortion of money against the investigating staff.

The government, he told Dawn, had already allocated Rs6 million as investigation costs under the Police Reforms, but in the absence of any mechanism that amount could not be drawn or used so far.

It may be noted here that earlier no money was provided to the investigating officers to carry out their job, which was the main reason behind the delay in the completion of the investigation. It was generally alleged that the police would meet the investigation expenses either from the accused party or from the complainants.