LAHORE - The graph of heinous crimes has descended drastically in Punjab during the first quarter of 2015 as compared to the last year, since the incidents of murder, abduction, rape, auto-lifting, and armed robberies are going down.
After many years, Punjab’s crime graph shows a downward trend with a sizeable decrease in heinous crimes registered during the first quarter of this year.
The decrease in crime rate has been attributed to two key factors – executions of condemned prisoners and the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP).
The official record of all reported crimes reveals that the incidents of dacoity, kidnapping, and robberies including auto-lifting and snatching have decreased significantly. For an instance, the police registered 1028 murder cases during the first three months of this year in Punjab while at least 1319 murders had been reported from January to March in 2014.
Lahore DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf says that special measures taken by them under the National Action Plan (NAP) have yielded significant results.
According to him, they took a lot of initiatives during the last three months which literally helped police control crimes.
“The non-stop raids against target offenders, up-gradation of police emergency helpline (Rescue-15), and round-the-clock patrolling in the crime-prone localities are a few working examples. We also delivered maximum resources to the police stations to fight criminals,” says Haider Ashraf, the Lahore operations police chief.
The Punjab police reported more than 96,000 crimes during the first three months of this year, as compared to 95,435 cases registered during the corresponding period last year.
These statistics don’t indicate that crimes rate has gone up. They only show that more people are now willing to report crimes, and the police do file cases and charge sheets against the accused. The stats may show that crimes rate for Punjab is more than the other provinces. But this does not mean that there are more crimes in the Punjab.
When I discussed this issue with Lahore operations police chief Haider Ashraf said, “We do not want crime rate to be brought down. On the contrary, we want each crime to be reported and proper investigation to be done. That is the challenge,” he added.
Although the numbers of overall reported cases are almost same as compared to the previous year yet the incidents of heinous crimes including killings, robberies, abduction, and rape have descended drastically.
The provincial police reported 10351 cases of crimes against person during the first quarter of this year (January to March) against 11856 cases reported last year and 11757 cases registered in 2013 during the same period.
Similarly, police registered 22162 cases of crimes against property in first three months of 2015 against 25698 cases registered in 2014, and 24029 cases reported in 2013.
As per police record, during the first quarter of this year the law enforcement agency reported 445 cases of dacoity against 658 cases of dacoity reported during the same period in 2014. Similarly, the cases of armed robberies also dropped from last year’s 5348 cases to 4363 in 2015. Last year, the police had reported 4934 cases of auto-lifting and 1714 cases of auto-snatching during the first quarter and this year the police registered 4405 of auto-lifting and 1284 of motor vehicle snatching.
In the category of crime against person, police had reported 1319 cases of murder, 3351 cases of kidnapping, 29 cases of abduction for ransom, 570 cases of rape, and 46 cases of gang-rape during the first three months of 2014. This year, the police have reported 1028 cases of murder, 3025 of kidnapping, 19 of abduction for ransom, 538 of rape, and 46 of gang rape cases. The stats reveal that the incidents of heinous crimes are going down drastically across the province.
A source in the Lahore police says that Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Muhammad Amin Wains in his weekly crime-control meetings with field police officers of Lahore has been stressing upon arrest of proclaimed offenders. He says that according to police record, a good number of suspects wanted in dacoity and robbery cases are still at large.
Also, the police killed more gangsters in ‘encounters’ during the first quarter of this year as compared to the previous. According to official stats, the provincial police killed at least 96 alleged criminals during the first three months of this year, as compared to 70 people gunned down in ‘encounters’ during the same period in 2014. The figures indicate the police are more aggressively ‘chasing’ the bandits to purge society from criminals.
Though the police took some important initiatives under the national action plan, crime experts say, the police also need to focus on merit-based investigations, capacity building of police investigations, crimes scene preservation, and other modern techniques to track down the organized gangs of criminals.
Apart from deployment of cops in the field, CCTV cameras should also be installed at vulnerable spots to monitor criminals involved in street crimes.
Another police officer says that most of the criminals arrested for under Sections 392 (punishment for robbery) and 395 (punishment for dacoity) of Pakistan Penal Code often got released after only a month-long imprisonment. He says most criminals secure bails due to non-pursuance of cases by complainants, police failure to ensure identification parades, lack of ‘genuine’ recoveries and much-delayed court verdicts.