HYDERABAD, April 1: The district Nazim of Hyderabad, Dr Makhdoom Rafik Zaman, has said that he had received several verbal complaints about the working of the District Public Safety Commission as well as its chairman, Masood Pervez.
He claimed that members of the DPSC had no right to use blue lights on their private vehicles given the fact that even district Nazims were not allowed to use blue lights on their official vehicles.
Speaking to newsmen after addressing members of the District Council here on Tuesday, he said that he had left the DPSC completely independent and did not interfere in its work despite the fact that he received so many verbal complaints against the commission.
He said that the DPSC was a body which could conduct any inquiry against the district Nazim himself if any complaint was submitted against him.
When asked as to what is the nature of such verbal complaints, he replied that these pertained to the slow pace of progress of commission officials and that the commission did not give proper response to the complainants.
He maintained that the DPSC was supposed to be a mechanism for checks and balances on the working of the police department.
Raising objection on the culture of using blue lights by DPSC members, he said that they were simply not authorized to use it as he himself was not allowed to put a blue light on his official vehicle.
He said that the District Council had discussed working of the DPSC in its session for the first time and he would now have to look into it.
He said that he had given a free hand to the DPSC so far keeping in mind that it had been only four to five months since it had been set up.
NON-ELECTED MEMBERS: District Naib Nazim Nawab Rashid Ali Khan expressed serious reservations about the non-elected members of the DPSC and demanded their replacement because the commission was an important institution and President Gen Pervez Musharraf had been very keen to see the efficient working of DPSCs.
Talking to newsmen on Tuesday, he said that he had conveyed his dissatisfaction on behalf of the members of the council that non-elected members were not as efficient as the elected members.
He said that he had written a letter to the district Nazim to tell the government that those non-elected members should be replaced.
He stressed that such people should be inducted in from outside who had a good social and political background, having know-how of the society as well as working of the police.
He disclosed that these members were supposed to serve the people in respect of their police-related complaints.
DCO: District Coordination Officer Mukhtiyar Ahmed Aziz on Tuesday admitted that the chairman of DPSC, Masood Pervez, had complained to Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad and chief secretary K. B. Rind against shifting of the commission’s office to a place which does not match his status.
He said that the commission’s office was shifted under the directives of the chief justice of the Sindh High Court, Justice Syed Saeed Ashhad, from the revenue building because the civil courts had to be shifted there.
He said that now the commission had been allotted an office in the defunct SRTC building, located in GOR Colony.