Dolphin Force firing claims boy’s life

LAHORE: Dolphin Force officials’ indiscriminate firing left a 14-year-old boy dead and a youth wounded on Ring Road in the Badami Bagh area on Tuesday.

Dolphin officials signaled a car to stop for checking but the car driver attempted to speed away from the scene. The officials chased the car and opened indiscriminate firing.

As a result, a 14-year-old passerby, identified as Saleem, died. The car driver, identified as Atif, was wounded and removed to hospital where his condition was stated to be stable. According to the eyewitnesses, the Dolphin officials managed to intercept the car after traveling a short distance. They dragged the car riders out of the vehicle and forced them to take responsibility for killing the boy.

Meanwhile, the Dolphin officials shot at and wounded the car driver besides giving other riders a good thrashing. The Dolphin officials also conducted thorough search of the car but found nothing illegal that could help the police in hushing up the heinous crime.

Later, the deceased’s relatives and locals blocked the traffic by placing his body in the middle of the road for two hours and chanted slogans against the police. The protesters demanded immediate action against the accused Dolphin officials. The protesters also manhandled the policemen on the spot. The protesters dispersed after police assurance in connection with the registration of an FIR against the accused officials. Police have removed the body to morgue.

Body found: A 70-year-old man was found dead in the Tibbi City police jurisdiction on Tuesday. Police claimed that the old man, yet to be identified, was an addict. He might have died of natural causes, police suspected. The body has been removed to morgue.

PSCA project: A 10-member delegation of Harvard University scholars and faculties visited Punjab Police Integrated Command Control and Communication Center (PPIC3) – the premier security project of the Punjab Safe Cities Authority- here on Tuesday.

The chief operating officer briefed the delegation on various on the project. “We have a grid of 8,000 geo-strategic CCTV cameras knitted with fiber-optics stretch of more than 2000 KM and initially up to 300 interactive emergency panic buttons or phone booths, installed at significant locations within the metropolis enabling public to resort to rapid police responses in case of untoward situations”, told the officer to the guests.

“Through this almost omnipresent surveillance mechanism we have been able to provide credible litigable evidence to police and other law enformcement agencies in more than 700 cases and instances.

More than 15,000 suspicious profiles were spotted and assessed for harmful intentions or possessions resulting into forestalling a number of untoward events before occurrence”, he added. “PSCA is cooperating with national and international educational institutions and scholars in their research endeavors related to security, surveillance and science of modern policing”, he said.

The delegates were shown round various arms and functions of the project dealing in 15 operations, Police Dispatch Unit, Video Control Unit, Media Monitoring Unit and the PSCA insignia Cam-surveillance Operations Management Centre.

The Harvard delegation showed keen interest in learning about the unprecedented integrated policing mechanism in Pakistan employing advanced methods for surveillance and security. Road accidents: Total 818 road accidents were reported to the Provincial Monitoring Cell of the Punjab Emergency Service/Rescue 1122 from all districts of Punjab during the last 24 hours.

Eleven people were killed and 529 badly injured in the accidents. The injured were removed to different hospitals. However, some 390 victims, who sustained minor injuries, were given first aid by the emergency medical teams.