Islamabad police set up first dispute resolution council

Islamabad: Inspector General of Police (IGP) Islamabad Qazi Jamil ur Rehman on Friday inaugurated the ‘Dispute Resolution Council’ for the settlement of minor disputes at the community level with an aim to provide relief to the people and minimise the burden of police and courts.

Following the vision of the Prime Minister of Pakistan to provide relief to the people, the council has been set up which would look into the cases of civil nature including domestic and monetary disputes and other case of miscellaneous nature. The IGP formally inaugurated the `Dispute Resolution Council’ at Rescue 15 while DIG (Operations) Afzaal Ahmed Kausar, SSP (Operations) Dr. Syed Mustafa Tanveer, Additional SP Farhat Abbas Kazmi, senior police officials, and members of the council were also present on the occasion.

The IGP said this council would resolve the cases of various nature and try to resolve them at the initial stage. He said that SSP (Operations) Dr. Syed Mustafa Tanveer had played a vital role in setting up this body while members of the council were carefully been selected. He said that council consists of well-reputed, respected, apolitical and uncontroversial individuals are drawn from various sections of society including educationists, journalists, lawyers, businessmen, retired civil officers and persons belonging to NGOs.

The IGP said the councils would be responsible for amicably resolving the disputes through a proper fact-finding process and work as a jury in the conduct of contested investigations.

He said that the burden on policemen would also decrease and they may get time to effectively handle cases of criminal nature.

For the improvement in the functioning of the council, he said that Dispute Resolution Councils of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be contacted while the proper publicity would be made regarding the performance of the council in Islamabad through media.

Earlier, the SSP (Operations) Dr. Syed Mustafa Tanveer briefed the IGP about the nature of the work of the council and the members included in it. He said that Council is being named as `Nasir Khan Durrani Council’ as the late police officer introduced conciliatory committees in Islamabad for the first time. These committees, he said, performed very well and this was the successful model to involve the community in policing affairs.

IGP Islamabad, DIG (Operations) and SSP (Operations) would forward the complaints or applications to this council which would resolve them after summoning the parties. The council would not directly receive any application while police coordinators have been appointed to assist its members.