Sardar Irsahd
LAHORE: Despite tall claims of controlling crime rate by Inspector General Police (IGP) Habib-u-Rehman, the crime graph continues to increase at an alarming ratio with rife in number of street crimes and daylight robberies in Lahore.
After assuming charge as IGP Punjab in the later half of February 2012, Haji Habib-u-Rehman then claimed to curb the crime rate. He introduced a new term and named it aggressive policing. "The police under the light of CM Punjab vision trying to implement aggressive and preventive policing strategies that resulted in a sharp decline in overall crime rate particularly heinous crimes like robberies and dacoities throughout the province" claimed by the IGP a couple of weeks back during a meeting of police high ups. While talking with media persons on various occasions he always pledged to come hard on criminals to maintain law and order. But the facts do not endorse the lofty claims of the provincial police chief.
Lahore is experiencing a lot of daylight robberies and the ratio of street crimes has increased alarmingly. Almost 20 to 25 robbery cases are being reported daily in the provincial metropolis.
To control the street crimes, Lahore police have adopted the strategy of staged police encounters. The criminals are preferred to be killed on the spot instead of being arrested and presented to the court for a trial. Some reliable sources claim that in some cases, the robbers were arrested and kept in police custody but later were killed in some police encounter staged specially for the purpose.
The official record of police department shows that police killed at least 184 bandits in 'encounters' from January 1 to August 2012. This figure shows that police have resorted to encounters to control crimes. A high ranking police officer told this correspondent on condition of anonymity that "police have decided in principle to finish the outlaws in police encounters to avert the lengthy legal process which gives benefit to the criminals who come out on bail". He further said that the conviction ratio is only two percent and most of the criminals got nominal punishment which produce negative impact. "Most of the criminals who come out of jail become hardened criminals and commit crimes without any fear", he maintained.
An SHO, who have conducted some of the encounters, told that "police are forced to kill the hardened criminals in encounters as they come out of jails due to weak legal system and then get involved in anti social activities and some of them become extortionists".
But despite killing outlaws in the encounters the situation of law and order is deteriorating day by day. If the strategy of police encounters is a right step in a right direction, the crime graph must show a decline. The way the criminals are being finished in police action, the street crimes must have been controlled by now. If the situation is showing some other picture, the high ups of police must revise their strategy.
Here a million dollar question arises if police cannot control crimes and fail to decrease the crime rate, what is the use of taking extra judicial measures like fake police encounters. Further, the authorities in police department must also think that staged encounter may prove to be counter productive.