By Mustafa Ali
ISLAMABAD: Inspector General of Police Ali Nasir Rizvi has ordered an inquiry and constituted a fact-finding committee to probe emerging policing practices, including the non-registration of FIRs and downgrading the severity of crime.Police officials told Dawn that the IGP office constituted the committee, comprising the deputy inspector general (operations), the director general of the Safe City, the assistant inspector general operations, the AIG investigation and complaints, the senior superintendent of police operations, and the public relations officer to the IGP. The committee would probe allegations that the capital police were not registering FIRs according to the volume and nature of complaints received by police as well as discrepancies between e-tags and the FIRs registered against those e-tag numbers.Besides, in certain property-related cases, the local police did not apply the appropriate law sections. For instance, cases were registered under Section 392 (robbery) of the Pakistan Penal Code instead of Section 395 (dacoity).The officials told Dawn that the inclusion of three officers, DIG operations, DG Safe City and SSP operations, in the committee raised concerns about transparency, as they were responsible for ensuring the registration of cases against each complaint as per the law. The three officers have access to the complaint management system (CMS) and they could check the status of e-tags, FIRs, and other policing matters with a single click on their computer screens. They, however, claimed they failed to curb the practice either intentionally or due to a lack of interest in their professional duties.
