Good policing needs no PC-1

A sleeping policeman breaks the speed while a sleepless policeman promotes speed. Mind you, sleeping policeman is Western slang - or jargon - for speed breaker. In my opinion, slang and phraseology have some background of folk wisdom attached to them and, as such, these sayings are not without substance. Leaving aside this anthropological discussion, I’m at present seized of the ‘awakened mode’ (or sleeplessness) of Captain (retired) Amin Wains, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), Lahore.
People including the citizens in distress who have been closely watching him work day and night, told me that ever since this police chief got posted about a year back in August last, he has not availed a single-day leave and is found rendering public service even on Sundays. This is something amazing, if not surprising. So far, I had only known one aspect of Wains’ personality and I repent having little knowledge about him. I had only known him as a good analyst as he has been participating with me in a number of current affairs and public awareness programmes in electronic media (quite regularly when he was Superintendent of Police).
Does this cop’s passion for work owe to his army background where commanders are said to be “men who make a difference” (to quote Major General (r) Niaz Khattak who has always been pleading character-building of men of valour, whenever I met him)? I think it depends on person to person. When I was at the army-supervised National Defence University, a general who later became the chief spy (or spymaster) once asked me with envy as to how much of energy I possessed with which I had been coping with my heavy journalistic-cum-(NDU) course workload, I replied, “come and visit my newspaper, you’ll be surprised to see things going on round the clock with so many men and women working without even an iota of fatigue on their faces.”
Thank God that this workaholism has made its way into police department, albeit at a senior position. It ought to be? This policing job is not a bed of roses and in my opinion this seems to be the conviction behind the CCPO’s restlessness, the other drive coming in all probability from the Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s work ethic (some people, however, say that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif too is blessed with a good work ethic despite his relaxed looks). As for this task, i.e the task of policing, it certainly devolves greater responsibilities on the shoulders of individuals performing police duties. Those who don’t have the nerve to remain awake (awake in all respects) must never ever join police – or even media.
And now I’ve been told that the crop of awake 168 Administration Officers (AOs) deployed in 84 police stations of Lahore that has been nurtured by the Captain and supervised by the Chief Administration Officer, SP Umar Virk, has started redressing people’s grievances though the grievances of a few SHO Hazraat also reportedly surfaced at the outset but that intra-police grievances’ issue was tackled well with humble discretion and sagacity employed in bulk by the CCPO himself who does keep his chin up but never believes in egoism and conceit that have for long remained the hallmark of many superior cops’ psyche.
With this information at hand, when I carried out more research, I came across a number of aggrieved citizens who opined well about this AO system. When I asked them was it not a parallel system within the police organization? The collective answer was that had it been working like a parallel system, the speed and frequency of grievances’ redress would not have been so satisfactory and high. “And moreover, what is more comforting is that politeness has returned and there is fear of police in the hearts of criminals, not the gentle law-abiding citizens as it used to be during the days of thana culture”. How come so much of sea-change, a senior citizen Ijaz was asked. He replied, “It doesn’t at all mean things have gone 100 per cent right but there is marked improvement in the system of policing. Now, in the shape of AOs, people feel as if the police chief is present in every police station as AOs have direct access to police seniors including the CCPO who come to the public help in times of emergency on the reports of AOs.”
Some locals who got relief in different police stations at the hands of AOs have demanded that the Punjab government should continue such a system of on-the-spot justice on a permanent basis even after the present CCPO’s transfer in future. Even otherwise, this proposal is not difficult to implement as it doesn’t cost even a single extra penny. Just a little, intelligent application of mind and energy: No huge funds, no PC-1 and no mega planning.
….mianrehman1@gmail.com