Lahore police dismiss 16,000 legitimate complaints in 10 months – Journal


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LAHORE: Lahore Police have recorded over 16,000 First Information Reports (FIRs) on “old complaints” filed by citizens in the past 10 months.

This would be the first incident of burial of such large numbers of crime figures that has been detected and the case was formally reported at recent meetings of senior police officials.

Some police experts say the term “burking” has been associated with crime in the law, which means that information about the crime is not recorded, thus stifling the process of criminal investigation.

An official familiar with the information said the complaints went unreported when police manipulated them to bring down the crime rate. He said the unethical practice deprived citizens of their basic rights to bring criminals to court to recover their ripped / stolen property.

The numbers widened to show crime; FIRs are now recorded on ignored complaints

The official said citizens filed 16,533 complaints between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31 in the six divisions of the Lahore police. All of the complaints were about the heinous crime, including vehicle abduction, theft, robbery and robbery, which went unreported in the criminal record.

The most disturbing part of the development was that the police had also rigged the crime related to kidnapping and vehicle theft. This form of crime had not gone unnoticed in the past in such great numbers, as evidenced by the numbers available with Dawn.

The data showed that the thieves took 4,209 citizens ‘motorcycles and 139 cars or other vehicles in addition to stealing 45 motorcycles and three citizens’ cars or other vehicles at gunpoint during the 10 months. All of these crimes were recorded in November.

This has exposed a terrible tendency to rig the crime figures in the provincial capital under the noses of the Chief Minister, the Chief of the Provincial Police and many other offices of the authorities concerned.

Police experts say that the effectiveness of police officers is usually measured by an escalation or decline in the crime rate. They are of the opinion that the data shows that the officers during the period mentioned above tried to “deal with the crime” by not recording it.

“The manipulation of crime figures has often been presented as the worst unprofessional precedent that plagued the police service,” commented a senior police officer.

He says hosting the FIR is the state’s responsibility to keep a record of the commission of recognizable offenses that helps it assess the public order situation prevailing in the city.

The official data of denial of the fundamental rights of citizens to lodge a complaint against such large numbers of criminals have poorly exposed the police as well as the available mechanism.

He said that out of a total of 16,533 unreported complaints, 16 involved dacoities, 2,365 thefts, 4,413

vehicle abduction / theft, 570 home and store thefts, 1,360 street crime complaints, 7,210 property and 599 were miscellaneous.

According to the breakdown of the numbers by division, the cantonment division was ahead of all others in denying FIRs out of 4,188 complaints, followed by the city model division 3,356 complaints and the civilian lines division with 2,770 complaints.

Likewise, the city division did not file a criminal case out of 2,609 complaints, the Saddar division denied 2,077 while the Iqbal city division rejected 1,533 complaints from January 1 to January 31. October.

Another official familiar with the information said law enforcement officials prepared these official figures after conducting a detailed analysis of unreported complaints in the first 10 months of this year.

After detailed deliberations on the matter in a few meetings, he said, senior police officials sent these old unreported complaints to all divisional PSs to have them reconfirmed before filing the FIRs. He said that in the whole situation, the beneficiaries were the criminals / thieves who escaped court sanctions despite committing offenses.

After a verification process, the official added, the police registered 16,533 new FIRs on old complaints, significantly adding to the workload of the Investigations wing, which was already understaffed and logistics-poor.

Posted in Dawn, November 30, 2021

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