Arresting more than 2,700 proclaimed offenders (POs) across Faisalabad district has become a challenge for police officials. About 1,700 of these accused have been included in Category A while the remaining more than 1,000 have been included in Category B. These POs are wanted by the police for murder, attempted murder, robbery and other serious crimes including kidnapping and extortion but the Faisalabad district police have not been able to arrest the accused due to which the crime rate is also increasing in the district.
Faisalabad district covers a population of 7 million while 40 police stations have been set up by the district police to maintain law and order and control crime in the district. However, due to poor performance of the police, theft, robbery, extortion, kidnapping and other serious crimes are gradually increasing in the district. And the involvement of POs in these serious incidents has led to a significant increase in the crime rate.
According to sources, the inspector general of Punjab Police has also issued orders to city police officer Faisalabad to arrest the POs. The CPO formed special teams to arrest the accused and Town SPs, Circle DSPs, and ASPs have been assigned special tasks to monitor these teams but the targets set by the concerned police officers and other police teams for the arrest of the POs could not be achieved. Nor are the police officials able to get the desired results, which is why more than 2,700 POs are currently out of reach of the police across the district.
According to sources, special teams formed by the police are accused of sending bogus reports instead of taking practical steps to arrest the POs and instead of arresting the POs, their relatives are arrested for allegedly performing bogus acts and cases are registered against them under sections 212 and 216.
Citizens, especially traders and the business community, have expressed serious concerns over the non-arrest of POs wanted in dangerous crime cases in Faisalabad district. The failure to arrest the notorious suspects is a failure of the police authorities, which is likely to worsen the law and order situation in the city.
