Lahore has overtaken any other city’s “murder rate” in January as the Provincial capital endured a dramatic surge in dacoity murder cases.
It was unprecedented that during above said period dacoits killed seven peoples who put resistance during dacoity bid with them and injured 17 others who were rushed to hospitals.
Only on Monday dacoits hit around 50 times in the city and in Sanda area shopkeepers and locals of the area blocked road and burnt tyres after dacoits looted a shop on gun point during broad day light. As per statistics during last 40 days provincial capital endured 1327 dacoity and theft bids. Bandits deprived peoples of their belongings worth Rs. 50 million including 48 cars and 108 motorcycles. Criminologists are holding CCPO Zulfiqar Hameed and Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) chief responsible for the above alarming situation. Lahore police have badly failed to control crime due to poor training and ill functioning of PSCA machinery.
Well-placed sources in police department said that corruption worth Rs. 2.5 billion has been committed on which NAB and Anti Corruption departments have been probing also.
A senior Punjab police officer on condition of not to be named said that at present only 2100 cameras out of 8000 are in working condition while others are out of order due to poor operation and maintenance (O&M) of them.
PSCA a project worth Rs. 20 billion has been scarped only after 3 years of its operation thanks to the top management of PSCA who did not pay maintenance charges to the Huawei Company on time. Resultantly the company management tendered its apology to continue maintenance work with PSCA. This refusal led the working of cameras to the suspension of about three months. Top management of the PSCA from the very beginning created hurdles in the payments of company responsible for the maintenance of cameras and overall system of PSCA. Reason behind was to oblige some blue eyed companies in connection with awarding contract of maintenance and operation of the system. It was mentioned in the maintenance contract that Huawei company will carry out maintenance and operation (M&O) by five years after inauguration of the project of Safe Cities. But shortly after the start of the project and management started creating hurdles in the working of Huawei and its management keeping in view the situation left and contract was awarded to Urban and another blue eyed company for maintenance.
Due to poor maintenance experience of the companies good number of cameras went un-operational. Earlier investigation officers of various police stations were facilitated with provision of camera footage about any crime scene but now a days this facility has also become rear. In very important cases any assistance was being extended to the police officials concerned by PSCA. Huwaei company was not issued taking over certificate with malafide intention. When this scribe wanted to contact Public Relation Officer of CCPO Lahore to know his view point over the story he did not attend phone call a text message was left on his cell phone explaining the reason for call. He responded with a simple text message “I am busy”.
