Punjab unveils police reforms

LAHORE:The Punjab government is bringing revolutionary police reforms aimed at ensuring operational autonomy, accountability and stability for policemen, but also improved public safety and citizens’ welfare by effective legislation next month, the Punjab government spokesman said Friday.

The reforms will enable SHOs through administrative autonomy for better service delivery and strengthen a citizen to claim his rights. The proposed reforms reflect an independent and people-friendly police department as promised by PTI before coming into power.

To redress people’s grievances against police, a law for setting up Police Complaint Authority shall be tabled within one month. The Police Complaint Authority, under the CM Secretariat and with S&GAD’s support, shall have requisite expertise to deal with cases of maltreatment and misuse of authority by police. The provincial authority with regional network shall be headed by director general and five directors, including a retired police officer, lawyer, prosecutor, civil servant and one more person. Regional authority shall work on the similar lines with one director and five deputy directors, for which Police Order shall accordingly be amended.

This authority shall be autonomous in nature, with powers to undertake investigations directly in case of death and serious injury due to police action. The authority shall decide the process of redressing complaints whether it should be investigated by the police and report to be submitted to it or to be investigated by the police under the supervision of the authority or investigated by the authority. In order to stop extrajudicial killings, illegal raids, arrests/detentions, Special Branch is being placed directly under the chief minister to enable the environment for fair reporting and true reflection of police excesses, unlike the previous practice where all officials are from police. Induction of separate qualified civilian cadre besides police officers, is also part of the plan. This model is already working brilliantly in IB and ISI and introduction of the same system in Punjab Police shall equally benefit police and public.

Having completed relevant research, the Punjab government will introduce legislation within two to three months, laying down comprehensive standards for arrest, detention, search and seizure, questioning of persons by the police and identification of suspects through fair trial. Such SOPs, and full utilisation of technology in criminal cases shall be the responsibility of provincial cabinet and IGP’s to set up and execute accordingly. The inspections’ extent, type and periodicity must be pre-determined, schedule of inspection shall be given by IGP to provincial government at the start of the year. PPO shall be notifying the schedule of inspections and reports shall be published after approval of cabinet. Another game changer shall be the introduction of Independent External Inspectorates, to be, legislated by the end of September. The inspectorate consisting of one director general and seven chief inspectors, whereas among these chiefs, there would be a retired police officer, a lawyer, a prosecutor, a civil servant, an auditor with relevant expertise and experience and another chief inspector as per the role suitability.