IG wants to turn police stations into relief centres

LAHORE: Inspector General of Police Punjab Rao Sardar Ali Khan has said that the police station is a basic unit of policing and to make it a real relief centre for the citizens is the need of hour.

He added that the role of supervisory officers is crucial in this regard, so supervisory officers should pay special attention to inspections and close monitoring while going out in the field to improve the departmental affairs of the police stations and eradicate the traditional police culture.

He issued these instructions to the officers while presiding over the first departmental meeting on improving the affairs of police stations and prevention of crimes against children at the Central Police Office here on Monday.

He further said that officers and personnel who have disrespectful, abusive or irresponsible attitude towards the citizens should not be posted in the police stations while effective briefing of stress management and public dealing should be given to staff appointed in police stations so that all possible steps may be taken in good faith to solve problems of citizens without delay. He further said that prevention of incidents of abuse of women and children is one of the top priorities of Punjab Police. Therefore, CPOs and DPOs should form special awareness teams of police officers and personnel to prevent incidents of sexual violence, harassment and

deliver lecture on Good Touch and Bad Touch and also briefing on contact number and procedure for getting immediate police help in case of any difficulty and abuse of children by visiting all educational institutions including schools, colleges, universities and madrassas.

He further said that arrangements should be made within the next one week to start this programme for the awareness and support of children in the educational institutions so that an awareness campaign could be launched as soon as the educational institutions closed due to Corona reopen.

Additional IG Operations Sahibzada Shehzad Sultan, DIG IT Waqas Nazir, RPO Sheikhupura Dr Inam Waheed, AIG Operations Zeeshan Raza were present in the meeting while CPO Rawalpindi Ahsan Younis and DPO Mianwali Capt (retd) Mustansir Feroze participated via video link.