Police chief told to identify every offender in over 150,000 unsolved criminal cases

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed the inspector general of police (IGP) Sindh to take steps to unveil every single offender in over 150,000 cases that had not been solved in the province during the last 10 years as the culprits involved in those cases had not been arrested.

The direction came as a single bench of the SHC, comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar, was hearing an application with regard to the non-arrests of culprits in the pending criminal cases.

The court had earlier directed the IGP to set up an investigation cell in every district as well as on division and province level in order to deal on multiple levels with such a serious issue with regard to the arrests of culprits involved in the untraced criminal cases in the province and legal disposal of such cases.

The bench had observed that a report under A class was not the final or legal disposal of a crime FIR as declared by the Supreme Court. Pursuant of the court orders, AIG Legal Mohammad Habib submitted that a team of competent officers had been constituted to update the official website with regard to untraceable criminal cases. He contended that as per his information, the number of untraceable cases which were marked as A class by the police would be 100,000 only for Karachi; whereas, in the rest of Sindh the number of such cases would be more than 150,000.

The high court observed that the IGP had earlier been directed to establish cells with regard to A class cases in every district of the province and ensure that the culprits were arrested. The court took exception over the non-filing of report with regard to compliance with the court directives.

The SHC was informed that a victim support programme was working and its centres had been set up in Karachi which provided every assistance to the victims/complainants or aggrieved persons. The court directed the police to set up victim support centres in every district of Sindh so that every complainant/victim could have redress for their grievances.

The high court directed the IGP to unveil every single offender and take positive steps to achieve the requirement of the law. The SSP Anti-Car Lifting Cell informed the court that as many as 54,000 cases were pending in A class. The applicant’s counsel, Manzoor Hussain, submitted that in heinous cases, the police department should ensure that if the case was assigned to a specific police officer, it should not be unnecessarily transferred to the other investigation officer. The court observed that it was expected that the quarter concerned would look into such aspect.

Regarding the DNA tests and reports, the SHC was informed by the focal person of police that in the cases requiring DNA and its cost thereon, there was a mechanism in place, according to which the cost was to be paid by the department directly to the laboratory. The court observed that the cost of DNA test should be specified and allocated in lump-sum in every district or police ranges and no delay should be caused with regard to the payment of DNA tests.

Amicus curiae Mohammad Hanif Samma submitted that the high court had already framed rules with the name of the Sindh Criminal Courts Rules 2012 which shall be applied to the police investigation department.

The high court directed the secretary law to submit report as whether the law department was working on these rules or there was any legislation. The court observed that the IGP should ensure that these rules were provided to every police station especially to the investigation officers, while the member inspection team of the court shall ensure that the judicial magistrates of the districts examined these rules at the time of the submission of progress report.

The SHC directed the police to ensure that during investigations of the cases, the victim complainant of the case was not called on each and every date of hearing. The high court directed the district and sessions courts to ensure that they maintained relevant record as provided under the criminal courts rule 2012.

The court directed the AIG legal and others to submit a compliance report by March 12. On a previous hearing, the SHC observed that no investigation can be said to have been completed unless the culprit is identified therefore a report under A class would never be admission of completion of investigation.

The court had observed that it appeared that we have a large number of unidentified criminals around us and how could there be a possibility of peace in the society which allowed free existence of evil in such numbers.