Fighting violent crime

The reappointed Karachi Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Ghulam Nabi Memon is looking for ‘clean and competent’ officers in order to make a good team to curb the city’s uncontrolled street crime, Bol News has learnt.

The police chief was reappointed amid growing incidents of crime in the metropolis. When asked what he will do to curb the incidents of crime, Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon, in an exclusive interview with Bol News, said, “At first I would say that the role of team leader matters and his team should be appointed on his choice.”

Memon also said he was looking for proportionately ‘clean and competent’ officers to form an effective team. “When better officers will be posted, desired results could be yielded.”

He was of the view that corruption was related to crime. “To control crime, we have to first control corruption within the department. If clean and competent officers are posted, the ratio of crime would also go down as both corruption and crime are related.”

‘Stop comparing figures’

Secondly, he added, the police department has to stop comparing crime figures with previous years and get out of this vicious cycle. “This should not be the criteria to judge crime. When you compare crime figures, police officials come under pressure. As a result, the officials at police station level stop registering FIRs to show less crime incidents in their respective area. This is not the solution to control crime.”

The CCPO was of the view that proper registration of FIRs is necessary. “Around 84,000 cases were registered last year and 60,000 cases were registered before the previous year. When we allow [officers] to register FIRs freely, the number of cases will go up. The SHO of a police station should not be accountable for the increase of crime incidents in their area so that we may know the actual number of crime incidents and can take appropriate measures accordingly.”

Better investigation needed

Similarly, the Karachi police chief claimed, the department has to improve the investigation to improve the prosecution rate which is now 40 per cent. “It’s true that no one is willing to go to investigate so the department had decided that the police officials who would pass out, would serve in the investigation mandatory for two years.”

He elaborated that FIRs should be registered on the basis of facts because when some officers fudge the facts and register FIRs with delays, the courts give suspects the benefit of doubt. “When the investigation is based on facts the suspects will face difficulties in getting bail.”

Merger of stations

Memon stated that he had the plans to merge two or three police stations into one. “Through this step, the police force of two police stations would be deputed in one and it would be more effective to implement law and order.”

About police impression on citizens, he explained that better officers were being deputed at public dealing places so that the public’s impression of the police could be improved. Besides, the police officials deputed in operations would be imparted training about how to deal with the public and these training programmes would continue intermittently.

As far as police strength is concerned, the sanctioned police strength was 60,000 while the available strength was 40,000 so it was the need of the hour to recruit more police officials to fulfil the requirement.

Going after drug dealers

He reiterated that apart from street and other crime, the police were after the suspected drug peddlers. “We are identifying the areas where drug peddlers were hiding or where they had safe havens. After this process, we will launch their hunt and if the local police will not act accordingly, [the] Special Investigation Unit, or other special police force will take action to arrest the suspected drug peddlers.

“I will try to improve police working and also try to make police public-friendly,” the CCPO concluded.