LAHORE - Lahore Capital City Police Officer Muhammad Amin Wains yesterday said that the country was fighting a war against a mindset and it is therefore needed to expose the facilitators of terrorists.

“The city police will utilise all available resources to fight the enemy,” said the CCPO while addressing a joint meeting of Investigation and Operation wings of the city police at Qila Gujjar Singh.

The city police chief issued directives for the field police officer to step up security sweep across the metropolis to hunt down criminals and suspected militants. He also ordered door-to-door search in the identified areas of Lahore in order to track down the supporters and facilitators of militants.

DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf, DIG (Investigations) Chaudhry Sultan, SSP Muntazir Mehdi, SSP Hassan Mushtaq Sukhera, all divisional SPs, and SHOs were also present in the meeting. The participants of the meeting also reviewed the crime and law and order situation in the city and shared new strategies to fight criminals and militants.

Amin Wains said that the combing operations were part of the crime fighting policy. He said that the “Punjab information of Temporary Residence Act” must be implemented in letter and spirit. The guesthouses, hostels, hotels, and rented accommodations should be searched on regular basis while the divisional SPs should try to get search warrants before launching the operations, the officer directed.

According to insiders, the CCPO also directed the field police officers to intensify clampdown on the elements involved in running brothel and gambling dens besides drug-peddling and land grabbing. He ordered the police to launch a full-scale operation against illegal firearm dealers, drug dealers, and land grabbers.

“There will be zero tolerance against corruption and misuse of powers,” he further warned. The policemen found involved in corruption would be thrown out from the department, Wains said.

The CCPO further directed the police to launch raids in their respective areas and arrest the main drug dealers instead of catching the drug addicts. He said that the police should arrest the main suppliers of narcotics after interrogating the drug dealers.

The divisional police officers were directed to regularly supervise the campaign against drug pushers, land grabbers, and those running brothel and gambling dens. The reports regarding the crackdown would be sent to the police headquarters on a daily basis.