Taking policing in a riddled society at its best with devotion and dedication
New dimensions of policing have been introduced in a detailed report – ‘Policing with Passion: Strategic Initiatives and Institutional Reforms in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Police’, compiled by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Police this year.
Amidst a series of challenges, KP Police under the command of IG KP Nasir Khan Durrani accomplished a herculean task that others can only fancy and dream. Durrani’s policing record is replete with dedication, commitment and passion for positive revolutionary undertakings.
IG KP Police Nasir Khan Durrani assumed charge as Commander of KP Police in September 2013 and made possible the impossibilities in policing department of the province.
KP, the war theatre and victim of violence for last three decades proved most difficult province when it comes to law enforcement. Geostrategic position and geographic landscape of the province made it vulnerable for terrorists attacks and interference of militant activities.
The province shares long porous border with Afghanistan and aftershocks of Afghan resistance against Soviet invasion still haunts the province in form of Afghan refugees present in the province and subsequent consequences. It is needless to say that in the past, successive provincial governments never took initiative to confine Afghan refugees in camps as Afghan refugees were allowed to move and settle across the province owing to unavailability of monitoring mechanism.
Before Durrani’s emergence in KP, the police were riddled with challenges relating resources, capacity constraints, allegations of corruption, nepotism and poor police perceptions as compared with policing standards of three other provinces of the country.
To cope with challenges of militancy and terrorism, KP withstood fury of terrorism as the forefront province against terrorists. KP police took insurgents head on, albeit their training mechanism was conventional and inefficient.
Terrorism, kidnapping for ransom, extortion, target killing and narcotics were the main concern for every KP Government in the past and despite undertakings and will on part of former provincial government and law enforcement agencies, KP remained in the grip of militants and terrorists. Suicide attacks tarnished the image of the province and took away the sense of security from people of KP.
To identify root causes for poor policing standards, a comprehensive anatomy was conducted in KP Police and factors affecting the performance of police were diagnosed as ‘lack of capacity’ and training mechanism to counter the challenges of Policing in the province.
During course of time, police strength in the province was increased three-fold but the capacity of training institutes in the province was never increased appropriately.
For this purpose and to impart training and to teach how to inculcate capacity challenges, Directorate of Training and Development was established in KP Police Department with endeavours of IG Nasir Khan Durrani, which ensured proper mechanism relating to Police School of Investigation, Police School of Intelligence, Police School of Tactics, Explosive Handling and Police School of Public Disorder Management.
In past only three Recruit Training Schools were operating in the province at Hangu, Mansehra and Kohat that were not sufficient to handle training load of force as there remained always waiting list of recruits to be trained at a Police Training Centre. For this propose two new training schools were established at Malakand and Swabi to train newly recruits with modern security techniques.
Newly inducted police personnel were trained in a competitive environment at these schools to boost their investigative skills, to enhance skills at observing crime scene management, forensic, cellular forensic, Information handling, cultivation of sources and report writing while at Police School of tactics, police officials were equipped with modern security and operational tactics.
Out of these new recruits, outshining candidates are being selected for other advance courses and wings including Rapid Response Force (RRF) and Elite Force to equip the recruits to counter terrorism incidents and attacks.
Keeping in view security situation of the province, Police School of Explosive Handling was established at Nowshera and under this school fully fledged Bomb Disposal Unit was established across the districts in KP anticipating magnitude of security threats in the province. To cope violent protests Police School of Public Disorder established at Mardan to train police with stress management, mob handling and crowd control technologies.
Due to militant and terrorism incidents in the province, people have started expecting the police to not only do routine policing but also combat militant and terrorism attacks. The conventional training measures imparted to police earlier proved inefficient to tackle militants and untoward terrorism incidents in the province. For this purpose Elite Training Courses were redesigned for all those police officials who joined Police Force years ago. So to bring all those experienced and seasoned police officials at par with newly recruited trained police force, KP Police Department introduced mandatory ‘Basic Elite Command Course’ that includes trainings of firearm practice, hostage situation, VIP protection, Combat Training and Police operations.
In addition to conventional physical training of parade and musketry, the recruits are being trained at swimming, unarmed combat; rescue operations in natural calamities, public disorder management and search operations.
Special advance courses are being designed for promotion of DSP level officers, as SDPO is the main office in Police Department that can bring about a quality change in policing at Police Station to facilitate the public relating their complaints and concerns.
Scores of special units are also being redesigned and established to cope with multiple challenges in basic policing environment that include Counter Terrorism Unit which is operating with a staff of 2,200 with assistance of three wings including intelligence, investigation and operations.
RRF is standby force that comprises highly motivated and trained police personnel and they get ready for deployment at 5-10 minutes’ notice in case of any emergency.
Like RRF, Special Combat Unit is trained and tasked to respond to extraordinary situation that RRF is unable to handle. Amidst all these highly motivated and trained individuals, Women Elite Commando Unit is made part of KP Police Department to tackle any untoward incident that involves women localities.
Cellular Forensic Cell is mandated to trace suspected and criminal elements with assistance of data of cellular forensic reports, as in the province crime relating kidnapping for ransom are rampant and tracing criminals through mobile data becomes easiest approach to clampdown on criminal elements.
Likewise, IT based policing tool was incorporated after the situation necessitated that all crime and criminal data be readily available to police officers throughout the province.
Similarly, ‘Centralized Crime tracking Analysis System’ has been established in the province that is based on Geo-tagging technology and all data includes pictures of criminals, pictures of crime scene and incident details are sorted in the main database with android mobile devices. In this technique, data when captured and submitted to main server is automatically plotted on Google maps, which can be utilised to analyse crime trends in the province.
Similarly all available details and information about militants could be sent and shared by main database.
KP Police taking lead also launched and developed a centralised Data of FIR
Record under unit of ‘Criminal Record Verification System’. Under this system, FIR can be searched via CNIC, name and father’s name and through this identity verification criminal record of any individual can be checked through Identity Verification System relating their involvement in any crime activity and any FIR registered against him.
To keep check on vehicles in the province as there are reports that militants use stolen vehicles or vehicles with fake number plates to carry out terrorist activities, KP Police has launched vehicle verification system.
It has been observed that stop-and-search exercise at police checking points on roads proved meaningless due to lack of any information available with the patrolling staff. To resolve and identify stolen vehicles as well as those vehicles with fake number plates, a systematic device is being formed with assistance of Excise Department that is linked with Cell-Phone SIM of police officials deputed at check posts.
So far 400 ‘vehicle verification’ SIMs have been distributed among police officials in the province deputed at Police Check posts.
Despite being over-stretched, KPK Police has successfully computerised the complete details of 135,867 rental households in the province. This system is also capable of searching online the tenants-record, using mobile phone, handheld computers and computer devices. Tenants Information System and Tenants Database has been integrated with the criminal database record under the scheme “Digitisation of FIR” and this system automatically generates an alert to the home police station when a tenant’s data matches criminal record of criminal database.
The teams and theme of snap checking were formed with the mandate to carry out snap checking at random stops for short time span. On the other side to prevent exploitation of public all the proceedings are being recorded, the teams are equipped with CRVS (Criminal Record Verification System), Canine Unit, and Bomb Disposal Unit. This sort of snap checking made it difficult for criminals to predict where the checking would take place, which has helped in reducing crime rate in province.
Contrary to conventional investigative skills, KP Police is taking lead for crime control and for this purpose is focusing entirely on sophisticated investigative skills. Investigation is undoubtedly the most important and significant aspect of policing.
Realising modern investigative skills scores of revolutionary units were established at SP level offices across the province that owns facilities with modern investigative tools including Fingerprint unit, Cellular and forensic unit. These units were tasked to provide technical support in identifying criminals and unearthing gangs by employing data technologies.
Similarly Crime scene photography unit, criminal record verification unit and identification verification system are integrated and each SP Investigation has these units at his offices across the province to identify and trace suspects accomplice in criminal activities.
Meanwhile keeping in view security threats across the province, “one-Click’ SOS Alert Service for educational institutes and other vulnerable sensitive places have been provided.
To purge recruitment process of corrupt practices relating bribery, nepotism and favouritism NTS was taken on boaard to ensure transparency in recruitment process. Similarly for interdepartmental promotion, Education Testing and Evaluation Authority has been tasked to hold examination. For inter-departmental promotion purposes, graded-self learning skills scheme has been introduced where every additional skill have been associated with marks for promote candidates.
To instill sense of responsibility and accountability, IG KP Nasir Khan Durrani initiated a series of surprise visits in different District Police Lines and Police Stations across the province. Through this initiative, police force remained cautious and alert round the clock as there is no preplanned visit on part of IG KP to visit any district or police station.
Similarly to honour and reward the outshining officials, ‘Reward and Orderly Room’ are being arranged regularly. To address public complaints relating police officials, Directorate of Police Complaints and Accountability has also been constituted to take action against corrupt police officials.
To ensure protection of police officials, KP Police department in consultation with army decided to fortify its operation vehicles by installation of mild steel shields on the same pattern as has been done by army contingents. These alteration vehicles provided almost 50 percent protections in case of any suicide terrorist attack.
Similarly, in order to ensure protection of police personnel doing duties at police check posts special security measures and gadgets are being provided. To create sense of responsibility among citizens as well, Dispute Resolution Councils are being constituted across the province with coordinated efforts of notable local people in their respective areas to settle minor issues at village levels.
Since first day of his charge, IG KP heralded action against corrupt and ill-famed police officials of the province, and scores of ill-reputed police officials were removed from their offices and filtered the once most corrupt department to change it into force of upright personnel and made it possible that ‘Thana Culture’ can be changed if it is being done with a sincere effort, to change the police department from top to bottom with commitment and passion.
KP Police like other provincial police forces of the country was notorious for typical “Thana Culture” but Nasir Khan Durrani within a span of one and half year turned policing culture into an upright, dedicated, dutiful and passionate police force.
During last one and half year, every department of KP Police was overhauled from recruitment, training environment, operations and facilities’ perspectives.
Today no one can deny this reality that KP Police has outshined conventional policing standards of other three provincial police forces. To reform KP Police credit should also be given to KP provincial government for mandating KP Police chief and providing an environment to make an end to political interference in affairs of police.
The revolutionary policing standard of KP Police in command of IG KP Nasir Khan Durrani needs to be acknowledged not only in public but also at governmental level, and this acknowledgement will work wonders to motivate and inspire many other police officials associated with Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan Police Force.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-328844-Taking-policing-in-a-riddled-society-at-its-best-with-devotion-and-dedication