SARMAD IQBAL AND ZAHAID REHMAN

As spring turned to summer in 2016, Lahore witnessed a strange sight; a band of uniformed policemen, 50-strong, driving around the Punjab capital in close formation on stylish black and white motorcycles. For several days this pack roamed Lahore, strutting their advanced weapons and slick driving skills - letting their presence be felt.

For many Lahoris, this was their first introduction to the Dolphin Squad whose patrol is a regular feature of the provincial capital’s urban districts. A few months from that show of force of “the new face of policing”, results and reviews are mixed. The major concern is the sustainability of such a force due to scarce resources, and whether the behavioural reform of the police is actually here to stay.

According to witnesses - who are accustomed to the crude and often dishonest ways of the Punjab Police - at first, the new force was a pleasant surprise. The Nation approached people who had interacted with the new force, and one such account was that the stop and search by the Dolphin Squad felt like a professional exercise. This eyewitness was pulled over and politely informed that number plates were being routinely checked using the force’s standard issue smart phones. Finding nothing untoward, he was sent on his way; no unnecessary questions asked.

SP Dolphin Squad Karrar Hussain attributed this newfound professionalism to the concept of ‘functional specialisation’ practised in modern policing forces around the world. “You divide the police force into functionally specialised units, and every unit has a specific role to play, which after greater practice (in one role) will increase the expertise of (the unit) and make the work more focused,” he said told us. “There should be separate units for investigation, patrol and counter terrorism.”

He went on to explain the specific tasks of the new unit, “The (squad’s) primary purpose is to patrol. The next aspect (of their duties) is responding after crimes, and to act as the first respondent (after a crime has been committed). And lastly, they are also tasked with community policing.”

This is mostly to change the justified perception of the police as an extortion mafia. The SP said that the constables had been given scripts to learn how to respond and interact. In his own words, “A Dolphin squad member should not ask you for your papers, and try to not search the vehicle unless absolutely deemed necessary. If the public has any complaints, they can reach me through our Facebook page.”

Despite this healthy optimism in the senior police ranks, many - especially those employed in local police stations - remain sceptical.

Former Punjab IGP Azhar Nadeem opined, “A shiny uniform, new equipment and personnel without any (new) training cannot make a new force. If we are serious about reducing crime, we need to fix the (existing) police stations. All the problems (of the police) stem from the thana. Unless you fix that, nothing is going to change.”

We have seen such initiatives before, and they have also not amounted much. Launched in 1998 by Shehbaz Sharif, the Elite Police was envisioned as a police commando force that specialised in counter-terrorism operations. In 2004, it was expanded and was given the duty to man pickets and control street crime. Outfitted with advanced equipment, newer vehicles and given extensive training, the Elite Police was touted as a force for the “modern era”. Today it is seen almost exclusively ferrying VIPs from one location to another, its other duties forgotten.

A similar fate befell the dedicated patrol and street crime unit, the Muhafiz force. It too roamed the streets in pairs of motorcycles, ostensibly providing deterrence and a sense of security in the locale. Over time, the force became a byword for inefficiency and corruption, and is rarely seen on the streets of Lahore.

The failure of both these initiative is rooted in one cause; lack of resources. After a few years of operation, maintenance and fuel expenses outstripped the budgeted funds, forcing units to halt patrol duty. Even when funds were available, they were woefully short of requirement; the daily fuel quota for the Muhafiz force is 1.5 litres per day.

The Dolphin force is still in its infancy, but fuel quotas are already causing problems. The body cameras on the constables’ uniforms - a key component for maintaining transparency and collecting evidence - have still not been requisitioned. Furthermore, there were reports around Qurban Lines in Lahore that several bikes were grounded due to a lack of funds for fuel. The Dolphin’s force’s funding issues may turn out to be bigger than the previous units. Each 500cc bike costs a staggering Rs1.5 million, its maintenance, fuel requirements and spare parts are going to be equally expensive. In the long run the issue may not be the efficacy of the Dolphin Squad, but whether it has enough funds to maintain that efficiency over the years.

Perhaps the clincher to these concerns is this; on 16 June the Anti-Corruption Establishment arrested four officials of the Dolphin Force for allegedly setting a drug-peddler free after accepting Rs20,000 bribe. Other similar reports from eyewitness have also suggested that all is not perfect in the aquarium.

Some have reported horror stories about being blackmailed by the members of Dolphin Squad, including in one instance, for as little as Rs5,000. The witness, on the condition of anonymity, said that the team that stopped him for a random search did not merely look for weapons, but contraband of all sorts, in the way the police is want to do with students. This is done in the hopes of finding hashish or small quantities of alcohol to blackmail them into paying bribes in exchange for avoiding a visit to the police station. The eyewitness in question was unfortunate, and was told that the small quantity of marijuana found on his person could be ‘added to’ so that any FIR lodged against him would be with exaggerated amounts for a trumped-up charge. The members of the apprehending team then divided themselves into pairs, with one half accompanying the witness to the nearest ATM, while the other kept his friend as a guarantee for his return.

In conclusion, the effort has to be lauded, that the police force has stepped into the modern age of the Internet and has learnt that PR matters. According to the SP, “We could’ve named it tiger squad or after any other ferocious animal, but the dolphin is a friendly creature; that is the image we want to project.” But is the modern force just the same beast in a different skin?