PESHAWAR - Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police has established an incentive based Police Information Network (PIN) to serve as a platform for the citizens to win significant amount of cash rewards for sharing credible information about terrorists and their facilitators.

The network is initially being launched in Peshawar and will later on be extended to other parts of the province. With the launch of PIN, citizens of Peshawar will be able to earn up to Rs 100,000 without compromising their identities as reward for informing police about terrorists, extortionists, target killers and their facilitators.

The decision to launch PIN was taken during a high level security meeting held in the office of the Inspector General Police last week. The meeting which was chaired by the IGP was attended by the heads of special branch, counter terrorism department and Peshawar police.

During the meeting it was decided that a lot of valuable intelligence can be obtained from the fellow citizens provided they are confident that their identities will remain confidential.

It was in this backdrop that the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the working of PIN was chalked out. According to the SOP, PIN will be personally handled by senior most officers including DIG CTD, CCPO, SSP CTD and SSP Peshawar.

The citizens having any credible intelligence about the said categories will only have to send the term PIN as SMS on mobile phones of the above mentioned officers.

These senior officers will then be contacting the sender personally for obtaining the information. Though unprecedented the involvement of senior most officers will help build public trust and credibility of PIN.

Platforms like PIN are being used globally by different LEAs involved in counter terrorism and crime control. In fact if successful it can prove to be the most potent weapon in state’s counter terrorism arsenal. In addition to having devised measures for keeping the identities of informer confidential, the police department will also be giving rewards ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 100,000 to the informers whose information culminates in a successful apprehension or foiling of an attack.

According to the sources at Central Police Office, an aggressive publicity campaign will be launched during the next week with the objective of apprising the public about the network as well as contact details of officers responsible for running the network.

The campaign will be simultaneously launched through banners, pamphlets, print media and electronic media.

If successfully, the network will serve the dual purpose of helping LEAs identify the miscreants and act as a deterrent for the sleeper cells of different militant organizations within settled areas.