First model police station of KP to be bulldozed

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtun-khwa’s first model police station, Gulbahar, would be bulldozed in a few days after its building was declared one of the biggest encroachments in the provincial capital.
The Gulbahar Police Station on the main Grand Trunk Road was declared model police station in April last year. Two other police stations of Peshawar at Faqirabad and University Town were also declared model police stations afterwards.
Recently, one police station each in Mardan, Charsadda, Swabi and Nowshera districts were also declared model police stations after the foreign-funded project was extended there. However, the first-ever model police station is being razed to the ground as part of the massive anti-encroachment drive launched by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.
“The Gulbahar Police Station has been declared an encroachment and will be demolished soon to open the road. We are also going to remove sandbags and concrete blocks around the police stations. These will be either shifted inside the buildings or some other arrangements will be made so the flow of traffic on the roads outside the police stations is not hampered,” Deputy Commissioner Riaz Khan Mahsud told The News.
Police officials said alternate arrangements had been made to shift the Gulbahar Police Station. “The building is being partially demolished under the anti-encroachment drive. The government, however, has arranged an alternate place where the police station will be shifted,” personal staff officer to the inspector general of police (IGP), Dr Mustafa Tanveer, told The News.
After declaring it a model police station, some infrastructural developments were made in Gulbahar, with renovation of the building, providing technology inputs for investigation, installation of closed circuit television cameras, setting up a reception as well as a female desk to receive women complainants in a friendly environment. The cops, however, were neither given relief by implementing the shift system nor provided other facilities.
Apart from the police station, the building hosts the offices of the SP city, ASP Gulbahar as well as the jury room and offices of the Dispute Resolution Council.Most of the police stations in Peshawar have blocked the roads and streets outside the buildings as part of security arrangements because of the precarious law and order situation over the past several years.
A massive anti-encroachment drive was recently launched all over the city to open all the blocked roads for vehicular traffic and pedestrians. Some of the roads and narrow bazaars that were blocked by the shopkeepers and vendors for decades have recently been opened by demolishing the structures.The administration has given notices to owners of all the plazas that have constructed shops in the parking lots.