‘Police and courts are partners in goal to help citizens’

KARACHI: The Police Reforms Committee has been working effectively, especially for redressing the public’s complaints, read a statement issued by the Sindh police.

The spokesman for the Sindh police said that the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan had set up the Police Reforms Committee (PRC) last year to recommend a way forward on police reforms.

The PRC released a report this January, and the most important point suggested by the committee was to accord the highest priority to the redressing of public complaints against the police.

It was decided that there should be a system whereby public complaints against the police are dealt with in every district by specially selected officers of integrity, of the rank of SP or DSP, who would have no other responsibility except dealing with public complaints.

This was suggested to ensure speedy and fair disposal of public complaints against the police. The sole benchmark of evaluating the success of this venture was the reduction in the number of people who, after approaching the police with complaints, had to run to courts to get relief.

“We have no doubt that if the idea is implemented in letter and spirit, the excessive workload on the courts, over and above the adjudication of criminal cases, would be drastically reduced, enabling the courts to reduce the tremendous backlog of criminal cases,” read the statement.

“The decision of the National Judicial Policy Making Committee about justices of peace, asking the complainants if they had approached the police with their complaints is nothing but a continuation of the existing practice of the JPs asking the complainants for an affidavit about them approaching the police and not getting any relief.

“We have only tried to ensure that the complainant, once he approaches the district complaints officer, is provided immediate relief due to them as per the law and up to a maximum of seven days.

“We assure the honourable members of the bar that our basic goal is to strive for alleviating the sufferings of the common man vis-à-vis complaints against the police.

The honourable bar members and the police officers are partners in this noble endeavour and shall continue to be so.”

The Sindh police chief also assures the public that they believe the best way forward in police reforms is to have a system whereby the complainant does not have to run from pillar to post with his grievances against the police but is given the priority the complaint deserves.

The goal is to strive for coming down on police deviance with an iron hand and to ensure that the rights of every individual are protected by the police as mandated in the law, concluded the statement.