Rescue 1122 claims receiving over 4.3m prank calls this year

PESHAWAR: Rescue 1122 has claimed to have received over 4.3 million prank calls during this year, hampering services in extreme emergency, cases including bomb blasts, attacks, fatal injuries and other such incidents.

An official told The News the total prank calls received by Rescue 1122 were 43,15,318, with 2574242 other calls that could not connect for one or the other reasons.“The people of Peshawar made 616032 prank calls to Rescue 1122 during this year, without realising the phone lines are to be used only in extreme emergencies to save lives,” the official claimed.

He said the department received 496314 prank or fake calls in Mardan, 565306 prank calls in terrorism-hit Dera Ismail Khan,191503 in Swat, 219027 Abbottabad, and 233792 fake calls in Nowshera. A similar number of fake calls were also made to the emergency service in all the other districts.

The official said that apart from pranks, there used to be fake calls asking for help, and when rescuers and ambulances reached the place, they found nothing had happened. The authorities repeatedly expressed concern over the large number of prank and fake calls, asking the relevant departments to take measures to stop them so the rescuers can concentrate on helping the general public in case of emergencies.

The law provides a six-month jail and a fine for prank calls.In 2019 and later Rescue 1122 had written to service providers to provide the identity of these callers so that they could register cases against them. However, no progress was made in actions against the prank callers.

Also, no campaign was launched to create awareness among the public regarding the sensitive nature of the duty of the staff in the operation room where prank calls are made only for fun.“We have received a total of 7049646 calls from across the province during 2024 and the rescuers responded within minutes to these calls for help,” the spokesman for Rescue 1122 Bilal Ahmad Faizi told The News. He informed that 184322 patients of different natures were rescued by the staff in the last 12 months while responding to 181384 different emergencies.

The highest number of calls for help, 1251849, was received from Peshawar. Rescue offices in Mardan received 566870 calls for help, Dera Ismail Khan 760010, Swat 341864, Abbottabad 420147, Nowshera 442238, Kohat 77814, Haripur 200039, Chitral Lower 44031, Chitral Upper 28193, Swabi 325083 and Rescue 1122 in Charsadda received 164092 calls for help. Offices in other districts of the province also received millions of calls.

“Our rescuers responded to 21812 road accidents, 144342 medical emergencies, 4847 fires, 3834 violence and bullet injuries, 270 building collapse incidents, 696 incidents of drowning and 5444 other natural emergencies in 2024,” said Faizi.

Rescue 1122 also provided services and rushed the victims to hospitals in 139 bomb explosions during the current year.In some of the incidents, the rescuers went beyond their duty to help the victims by risking their lives. However, there were hardly a few occasions that the services and sacrifices of the rescuers were acknowledged. On many occasions, the rescuers had to rescue people while firing was still taking place or there were fears of a second explosion.