SHOs in KP denied right to weekly off

PESHAWAR: Violating one of the basic rights of employees, the junior officers of the capital city police have been denied the right to one weekly off, a source said.

The station house officers in Peshawar City division have been allowed to avail only a 24 hour off after every 13 days instead of one off in a week. Earlier the capital city police officer had directed at least one day-off for SHOs in a week.

The SHOs and staff of the police station including moharrar and patrolling officers are supposed to be available round-the-clock, unlike other government employees who work for 8 or 10 hours a day. Many of these cops attend office and meetings in day time, appear in courts in connection with cases, arrange for the VIP duties and in the night they patrol the streets, carry out operations and conduct raids.

The SHO, additional SHO, moharrar and some other officers are supposed to be available for all these duties even at the weekends. In some areas, the deputy superintendents of police are also supposed to be available round-the-clock for supervisory duty. “There is a thinking that the junior officers are obliged to be posted SHOs and SDPOs to mint money and that is why they would never care about weekly off or other rights,” a junior official told, requesting not to be named.

Many question how any cop can perform duty round-the-clock with only 24-hour break in two weeks.“The seniors go to their homes after duty hours while most of them enjoy two day-offs in one week. No one from constable to senior officers should be denied the right of one day break every week as well as giving them time to spend with families after hectic duty hours, operations and public dealing,” said a cop who was not happy at the new order of denying SHOs one day-off in a week. Since 2013, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in KP on a number of occasions claimed introduction of shift system in the provincial police force to give relief to the constables as well as junior officials.

A source in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police said the shift system was considered on a number of occasions but the idea had to be dropped for lack of resources, shortage of manpower and deployment of a large number of policemen with the VIPs. An official said that a former district police officer made an effort in Kohat to implement the system in one of his police stations but the idea did not work for long due to shortage of manpower and resources.

Many police stations in the province were declared as model police stations in the last few years by merely setting up a Women Desk and doing some renovation of the building. However, the environment in all these police stations as well as the service delivery is still the same.

The people coming to these police stations suffer like the past as neither the environment changed for the cops nor for the public. Tougher working hours has forced many competent and honest officers to look for clerical assignments or find a place in the investigation, traffic or other wings so they can go home in the evening. “Only those prefer to be posted as SHOs who either want to complete their mandatory period for promotion to the next rank or earn money by misusing the power,” the source said. A cop said decent residences for officer near their workplace and proper duty hours for every policeman down to constable would improve the performance of the force.

The barracks for constables at most of the police stations and police posts lack basic facilities to live or better utilise their time in the police stations. The residences allocated to the SHOs and moharrars in some police stations are mostly occupied by other officers who are not vacating them for long.