Focus on improving quality of investigation: IG

LAHORE:Inspector General of Police Punjab Inam Ghani Inspector General of Police has said that providing human resources and other facilities to the Investigation Wing is one of his top priorities to improve the quality of investigation.

He said a feasibility report on establishment of "Unit Investigation Support" (UNIS) to assist the investigating officers in all the districts of the province should be prepared soon so that steps in this regard could be finalised. He said that "Unit Investigation Support" would work under Investigation SP in each district while the head of UNIS should be at least an officer of the rank of inspector.

He said that UNIS would have close coordination with the investigating officers and implement the SOPs issued by them. He appreciated the pro forma files of the investigation SOPs prepared by the Rawalpindi Police and ordered the officers to start the pilot project from Lahore.

He gave these instructions to the police officers while presiding over a meeting at the Central Police Office on Thursday to improve the investigation matters. He directed the Investigation Branch Punjab to carefully review the pro forma files of SOPs related to serious crimes of Rawalpindi police and if there were any shortcomings, those should be rectified immediately and implemented in other districts of the province. He said that steps should be taken on priority basis to improve the professionalism of investigation based on modern technology.

He said a working paper on establishment of UNIS should be prepared and presented in the meeting next week so that its recommendations could be finalised after careful review. Reliance on effective use of technology and forensic skills is being increased to make crime eradication speedy. He said capacity-building of investigation officers was being done. He said that all available resources should be utilised to further empowering the Investigation SPs in all the districts of the province while all possible facilities and resources to Investigation SPs should be provided on a priority basis so that they could fulfil professional matters efficiently.

The meeting was attended by Additional IG Operations Punjab Sahibzada Shehzad Sultan, DIG Investigation Lahore Sharaq Jamal, DIG Legal Jawad Mehmood Dogar, DIG R&D, Shahid Javed, DIG IT Waqas Nazir, DIG Operations Punjab Sohail Akhtar Sukhera and the other officers concerned.

CCPO: Capital City Police Officer Lahore Ghulam Mahmood Dogar has said that to meet the demands of the present time, Investigation and Operations Wings will be further strengthened after rationalisation of their manpower and logistic resources so as to improve working in preventive as well as preemptive sectors. The mechanism for checking the suspicious motorbikes in the City has been improved, resulting in decrease in cases of motorcycle thefts in the City. Lahore Police retrieved 218 plots worth billions of rupees from the land grabbers during the last three months. The performance of CIA Lahore has visibly improved as it recovered valuables worth Rs68 million, including jewellery, car, diamonds and cash, from the criminals during the month of March. Lahore Police will provide maximum security to the citizens to make the provincial capital crime and drug-free city with the support of the citizens. Ghulam Mahmood Dogar stated this while talking to journalists at CIA Headquarters Model Town.

DIG Investigation Shariq Jamal, SSP CIA Shoaib Khurram Janbaz and other senior police officers were also present on this occasion. CCPO Lahore Additional IG Ghulam Mahmood Dofar informed that CIA solved cases of murders, blind murder, dacoity and robbery, and arrested the accused of heneious crimes.

CIA arrested six accused of dacoity in the house of a doctor, Irfanul Haq. They accused, including Shafqat, Arsalan, Sarfraz, Ehtasham and Ali, were arrested and valuables worth Rs 20.5 million were recovered from them. The recovered from the accused included Rs2.8 million in cash money, a car, gold, diamonds and mobile phones. CIA also arrested 13 other accused of dacoity and robbery and recovered loot worth Rs 36.7 million from them. The CCPO Lahore informed that CIA also arrested an accused of murder, Arsalan, who had killed Hassan. Two accused, Abdullah and Ahsan, were arrested for murdering a citizen, Fiaz.

The CCPO said a man, Javed, who had killed a citizen, Shehbaz, on a petty dispute of only Rs45,000 was arrested. CIA also recovered unlawful weapons from an arms dealer, Asif Naeem.