KP Police demand vehicles to ensure effective patrolling

PESHAWAR: After withdrawing case property vehicles from the officers and police stations, the capital city police have forwarded a demand for new vehicles and bikes for effectively patrolling in the provincial metropolis.

All the divisions and police stations were directed recently to prepare a list of areas, police posts that need patrolling cars so that arrangements could be made for that. The police stations sent own demands to the relevant SPs which were forwarded to the capital city police officer.

An official said the same has been ordered in other districts after hundreds of case property cars were withdrawn from officers and police stations. Some of these vehicles were being used for patrolling but the majority were being misused by the officers, their families and friends.

Peshawar and almost all the districts are short of patrol cars as well as official vehicles for the SHOs and other staff to perform duties. The SHOs have even been stopped from using personal cars during the duty.

The News learnt that there were just 47 official vans for 34 police stations and 123 police posts (72 of which were sanctioned and 51 unsanctioned posts). Most of the police stations have one patrolling car for the entire area that has now been given to the station house officers (SHOs), this has stopped the patrolling.

An official of the capital city police, however, said recently there were 66 patrolling cars for police stations and posts while 20 other vehicles were that of the City Patrol. Even these vehicles, however, were not enough for around 160 police stations and posts.

A junior official said that apart from cars for the SHO, every police station needed four to six and even more vehicles as well as six to 10 bikes with fuel for police stations and police posts to ensure effective patrolling in the area.

A source said there were 17 official vans for 10 police stations of the City Division in the provincial capital out of which 10 were now being used by the SHOs while only six were left for patrolling, to counter streets crimes, carrying out investigation, performing VIP duty and dealing with rest of the issues in the main city.

In the Saddar Division, there are 11 vehicles for seven police stations and over 40 posts. The rider squads were mostly using private bikes since the police stations were not provided official motorbikes in last several years to go after the street crimes.

In the rural Peshawar, one police station, Matani, is spread over 189 square kilometres and has seven posts that needed several patrolling vans to maintain law and order. The area of Daudzai Police Station is spread over 102 square kilometres. “Besides, the Badaber Police Station covers an area of 132 square kilometers. It has 11 posts to provide security to over 490,000 population,” said an official. It has only two cars for the entire police station.

Not only in Peshawar but also the force is short of patrolling cars in all the districts. Besides, there are very few official bikes for the rider squad to keep a check on street crimes. The KP Police authorities have recently written to the government, demanding more official vehicles, bikes for police stations as well as increasing the funds for petrol and other expanses.