LAHORE: Speakers at the launching ceremony of a booklet entitled “Police Organizations in Pakistan” on Friday underscored the need for making the police a people-friendly force and opening it to accountability through reforms.

The booklet has been published by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Authored by Asad Jamal, it is intended to be a resource on various police organisations in Pakistan. The ceremony was held at the HRCP’s New Garden Town office.

HRCP Secretary-General I.A. Rehman said the commission had always been interested in policing in Pakistan because for a vast majority of people the police represented the state and had a direct bearing on their (people’s) welfare. The HRCP was neither a government party nor an opposition, he said.

He said the British rulers of India had drafted the Police Act in 1861 and also gave the Penal Code. The act addressed the needs of that time but it was not good enough for all times. Therefore, there had been demands to change it and to make the police serve people but rulers were not ready to improve the department, he said.

The Police Order 2002 also had its shortcomings, he said, as it was not debated sufficiently and therefore was not a result of collective wisdom of people. There had been complaints that even Punjab was not consulted while framing the law.

He said that when the law was now under the process of revision, the booklet had been prepared to let people first better understand the police structure.

The HRCP, he said, engaged the CHRI in writing the booklet because India and Pakistan shared the common colonial Police Acts, Penal Code and the CrPC. The method of utilising these laws was same in both the countries, he said.

Informing the gathering that New Delhi had produced a similar booklet last year, he said the initiative here was a beginning of a new intimate relation with the police which, he hoped, would ultimately become a responsible and people-friendly force in Pakistan.

Additional IGP Inspection and Vigilance Humayun Shafi was all praise for the author and said the booklet contained the commissions on the police which were not previously available in a single document.

He said the police had undergone a tremendous change. They’re now facing serious challenges of militancy and terrorism. The booklet would serve as a guideline on how to find solutions to new challenges.

He said there had been a greater demand that the police open themselves to accountability. And there had been call for informing people about procedures of the police. He hoped that the police would come up to the expectations of people and meet demands of the day.

Additional IGP Training Sarmad Saeed said under the law people and police were equally responsible for maintaining law and order. In the absence of this vital link, he said, the state had failed to achieve the objectives of policing. “We are facing the consequences of dissociating police from people,” he said.

He said the basic duty of the police was to protect the life, property and honour of people. And these were also the three most important human rights. Crime was a social disease which could not be cured without making the police act as social workers, he said.

Mr Saeed said he had failed to improve the police but had now started working to improve things. He said the police training had undergone a lot of improvement. “Problem is not with training. We need good human beings,” he said.

Ms Navaz Kotwal of the CHRI said her organisation had been striving for the police reforms but found a lack of will to do so among the policemen. She said there was much political intervention in the police working and little accountability because of their status as the “only coercive arm of the government”.

She said in India her organisation was working for the police reforms at policy level besides creating public awareness about the need to make them (police) people-friendly. She said the CHRI had decided to have the booklet published in Pakistan after the success of a similar document in India last year. “I hope the booklet will break the shroud of secrecy about the police,” she said.

Mr Sanjay Patil (also of the CHRI) said there had been scant material on the police working in South Asia. The booklet would help people know the role and powers of the police, he said.

Asad Jamal said the police did not offer any help in compilation of the booklet despite repeated requests. “You become a suspect when you seek information,” regrets the author who added that the booklet had addressed some vital questions like what are the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps. It explained the police structure and their constitutional and legal status.

The booklet was not intended to discuss policy measures to improve the police performance, he concluded.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/15/2010