‘IT projects help change Thana culture’

LAHORE

Former IGPs of Punjab Police have lauded the efforts of IGP Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera on steps taken to implement National Action Plan and effective use of information technology to change typical Thana Culture. 

Ex-IGPs and Additional IGPs Ahmad Naseem, Tariq Khosa, Ch Yaqub, Asif Hayat, Khawaja Khalid Farooq, Tariq Pervez, Aslam Tareen and Sarmad Saeed Khan visited Central Police Office on invitation of IGP Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera on Thursday. 

The delegation met IGP and visited Operations, Monitoring and Control Rooms, Police Complaint Centre 8787 and Media Cell. DIG Operations Aamir Zulfiqar Khan briefed the delegation about recently launched IT projects and other initiatives and said the technology has been made use of by Punjab Police in helping the citizens. Front Desks working in 202 police stations are a great step towards changing typical Thana Culture. These Front Desks will be operational in all police stations across Punjab by January, 2017, he said. Citizens are being facilitated through Police Complaint Cell 8787 where complainants have registered 24,463 complaints against police through call, SMS and email, out of which 19,353 complaints have been disposed of, 6287 complaints were proved to be false while investigation is underway on 5110 complaints, he said.  The delegation observed the working mechanism of Criminal Record Management System (CRO), Human Resource Management System, Biometric System, Crime Mapping, Entry and exit points monitoring and other projects.  The ex-IGPs and Additional IGPs praised the initiatives and expressed their views saying IT projects were delayed in previous tenures due to some issues but IGP Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera has taken the lead by timely aligning Punjab Police to the modern trends by implementing these interventions. Citizens are getting direct benefit of these projects and Punjab Police is gaining public trust along with setting an example for other provincial police departments.

Briefing about steps taken to implement National Action Plan, DIG Operations Aamir Zulfiqar said 12,963 offenders were arrested after registering 12,119 cases on violation of Loud Speaker Act, while 1236 offenders were arrested after registering 1021 cases on publication and distribution of hate material.