Daily Times

LAHORE: Citizens are suffering more than criminals at Police Response Unit’s (PRU) pickets that have been set up in the name of security checking across the city.

PRU personnel can be seen parking their latest air conditioned vehicles along the roads – especially during morning time when citizens are on their way to workplaces or dropping their children to educational institutions on bikes – stopping people and demanding only Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs).

The PRU personnel then get hold of the CNICs, while an official standing near the official vehicle starts writing down the particulars of citizens – especially their contact details and nature of job – in the pro forma register one by one.

This new practice has really put the citizens off, as they have to wait in a long queue for their turn to get ‘security clearance’. This security checking gets them late for work, while students also reach their schools or colleges after the classes have commenced.

On Thursday morning, a PRU team parked their vehicle in the same style near Lahore Hotel Chowk and started filling up their official pro forma. A number of motorcyclists could be seen in a queue for security checking. Some of them requested the policemen to let them go as they were getting late, but the officials responded by saying that data was being collected on the special orders of the Punjab chief minister.

Talking to this scribe, a PRU official – requesting anonymity for the fear of ‘serious consequence’ – said it was a well-known fact that citizens of this province were bound to obey the orders of the ‘king of Punjab’.

The official said that the police uniform had been changed without any good reason on the orders of the rulers despite the fact that other welfare initiatives for the force had not been taken. He said that the basic needs of the people were not being met by the rulers, but they were passing down such orders.

Zahid, a citizen waiting for his turn to get security clearance, told this scribe that new forces like Dolphin Force, PRU, Tiger Squad and Mujahid Force were suppose to fight crime, especially street crimes, and not harass citizens.

He said that billions of rupees were being spent on these forces in the name of protection but citizens who paid them through their taxes were now being made to face more difficulties than ever before.

Another citizen, wishing not to be named, said that the government had established new forces and provided them with latest vehicles and other equipment, but had completely failed to change the policemen’s traditional attitude. He said that a common man thought that a policeman in new uniform and equipped with latest gadgets – not to mentioned luxury vehicles – would be a ‘good cop’, whose behaviour would be on a par with law enforcers of developed countries. “However, as soon as the PRU personnel step out of their vehicles and exhibit their same old Punjab Police attitude, that image of ‘good cop’ gets shattered and the pieces buried six feet under the ground.”

Most of the citizens this scribed talked to said that the multiple patrolling force models – Mujahid Squad, Dolphin Force, PRU, Tiger Squad and Mohafiz Force – that were raised to fight street crimes had failed to deliver.

They criticised the police for relying on the old method of setting up pickets and checkpoints on roads instead of catching the real offenders/criminals.

It may be mentioned here that under the Police Response Unit project, at least 110 vehicles, including 82 latest smart-cars, are patrolling on roads across the city to check street crimes. A beat officer of the rank of an ASI is the in-charge of the four-member patrolling team, which includes a driver and two gunmen. The smart-cars are equipped with digital cameras, megaphones, first-aid kits, traffic cones, rain shoes and water bottles.

Earlier, CCPO Amin Wains and DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf had briefed the media on the PRU project. They said that the vehicles had the capacity to immediately respond to any incident across the city. The PRU squad also has three buses, a mobile canteen and a mobile workshop.