Daily Times

LAHORE: Filing a complaint with police is not less than a Herculean task as people have to run from pillar to post to get their complaints registered at different police stations in the provincial metropolis.

According to an estimate, around 50 to 60 people daily approach courts to seek an order for registration of first information reports after police decline to register FIRs or delay the matter on one pretext or the other.
Police usually do not entertain victims of street crimes, including car and motorcycle snatching and theft, as victims are told that their vehicles will be recovered and there is no any need to register a FIR.

Moreover, most of the people do not bother about lodging a complaint against street crimes as they fear that they will have to visit police stations again and again for getting their complaints registered.

Talking to Daily Times, residents of different parts of the city railed against South Cantonment, Mughulpura and City Raiwind police stations for not accommodating their complaints.

Narrating his story, a citizen, Shahid Saturday told Daily Times that some unidentified people had fired gunshots at the main gate of his house a few days ago and fled. “I went to the Raiwind Police Station to get my complaint registered but duty police officer told me that officers were not available and I should come tomorrow.”

He added, “The next day I went to the police station where another official told me that the station house officer was not available due to VIP duty, therefore, he could not be entertained.”

He said that in his third visit to the police station, an assistant sub-inspector told him that he should nominate somebody in his complaint. Shahid said how he could nominate anyone when he did not see anybody firing at the gate of his house. He said that police had not registered his complaint so far.
When contacted Raiwind police station, a duty official told Daily Times that there was no any report of aerial

firing in the last few days. “No one knows about the assailant. An ASI had visited the spot and tried to record statement of witnesses but there was no witness in this case,” he said.

In another case, South Cantonment police did not register a complaint of a citizen, who was deprived of his motorcycle.

When contacted, a police official at the South Cantonment Police Station told Daily Times that they had received a complaint of motorcycle theft but the station house office (SHO) had ordered the police to recover the motorcycle in three to four days and then register the complaint.

Meanwhile, DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf has said that ‘Thana Culture’ had been changed by the efforts of police high-ups. He added that orders had to convey to all police stations to entertain innocent citizens and register their complaints immediately.

The DIG said that front desk had been established at all 86 police stations of the city to facilitate the citizens where educated staff, including women, was performing their duties. He said that sometimes legal procedure hindered police officials to register complaints.

Published in Daily Times, July 30^th , 2017.