144 accused arrested, arms, drugs seized

LAHORE : Sadar division police have arrested 144 criminals and recovered 26 pistols, two rifles, one Kalashnikov, bullets, around 15kg Charas and 317 litres of liquor. Police busted gangs and arrested its 12 members along with recoveries worth more than 1.36 million rupees from them.

Moreover, 15 proclaimed offenders of A&B categories in cases of theft, Cheque dishonor, fraud and other crimes were also arrested along with 20 court offenders. Police also arrested 27 criminals for violating the kite flying, one wheeling, loudspeaker and rental acts.

IGP: Punjab Inspector General of Police Captain (R) Arif Nawaz Khan said it was not possible to meet policing challenges of the modern era without employing the latest technology. Similar to safe city Lahore project a modern police surveillance system will be activated for monitoring in four districts of Punjab including Mianwali, Sialkot, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawal Nagar so that anti-social elements can be uprooted by further improving the police force response time in cases of street crime, traffic management and other crimes.

He said CCTV cameras under an integrated system would be installed in crime hit areas and on the routes of Ashura processions these cameras would keep officials in field updated about any emergency situation. He said police surveillance system should be made functional by September.

The IGP expressed these views while issuing directions to the officers during video link conference to discuss the matters regarding police surveillance systems.

He directed the managing director and chief operating officer of safe city Lahore to cooperate with the RPOs and DPOs of the relevant districts to make this project functional at the earliest.

The IGP was told that in the four districts at 300 different places CCTV cameras would be installed. While giving directions to the officers, he said the surveillance system would be helpful in monitoring of sensitive areas and highways. He said before the beginning of Muharram police surveillance system in all four districts should be made functional and if there was need of additional resources, technical assistance or any other cooperation the central police office should be immediately informed so that provision of the required assistance be made on priority basis.

In the conference Safe City MD Additional IG Ali Amir Malik, Chief Operating Officer Akbar Nasir Khan, DIG D/I Ahsan Younas, DIG Headquarters Khurram Ali, RPOs of Gujranwala, Sargodha and Bahawalpur regions were also present along with the district police officers of all four districts via video link.

Rescue: The Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) responded to 943 road accidents in Punjab during the last 24 hours. In these accidents five people have died, whereas 1,054 were injured. Out of the injured, 610 with serious injuries were shifted to the hospitals whereas 444 with minor injuries were treated on the spot by rescue teams.

The data issued by rescue showed 419 drivers, 32 underage drivers, 162 pedestrians and 478 passengers were among the victims of these road accidents.

The statistics showed 242 accidents were reported in Lahore, 83 in Faisalabad and 65 in Multan. The data further revealed 757 motorbikes, 130 auto-rickshaws, 85 motorcars, 45 vans, 10 passenger buses, 32 trucks and 140 other types of vehicles and slow-moving carts were involved in these accidents.