The Sindh police department has been taking various steps to successfully deal with the COVID-19 emergency. In this regard, Sindh Inspector General of Police Mushtaq Ahmed Mahar and Karachi Additional IG Ghulam Nabi Memon have time to time issued directions to their subordinates to avert any untoward situation.
According to police officials, police are also sometimes confused as multiple notifications and orders are being issued on a daily basis. Sometimes cops are not sure regarding whom they should allow to travel and whom not to allow. In addition to this, keeping morale of the police high under these circumstances is also quite challenging as they have to deal with misbehaving public, tiring duty hours and above all the threat of contracting COVID-19 while performing duties.
However, the police force seems resolute and has been facing all these challenges bravely for the people and the country. As yet, seven policemen have been infected with the novel coronavirus.
Strategy for Karachi
As the lockdown was imposed in the city, Additional IG Memon held a meeting and planned a comprehensive strategy. The meeting discussed all issues of police responsibility with reference to the coronavirus emergency and took a number of decisions.
The police high-ups decided that all the police leaves have been cancelled and nobody would be allowed to go on leave except in case of extreme emergency. The district SSPs were told to ensure that all those police personnel were also on duty who had been relieved by the training institutions due to the coronavirus emergency.
Police reserves have been raised at the police station, divisional SP, district SSP, zonal DIG and additional IGP levels to meet any law and order situation. It has been decided that the police would be polite but very firm in taking action against violations like functions at marriage halls, and holding of temporary bazaars.
Karachi’s top cop said the police had provided security to 22 hospitals where isolation facilities had been set up by the government. The District SSPs were directed to ensure that no police officer was deployed at such locations who was old or having any medical issue so that collateral damage may be avoided. The SSPs were also to arrange proper protective gears for the police officials on duty at the isolation facilities.
The SSPs were also told to stock anti-riot equipment and send their demands in case of any shortage. Meanwhile, the DIG security has been tasked with raising manpower of at least 1,000 police officers from his security units by withdrawing a portion of manpower deployed for guards and personal security. This manpower will be subsequently utilised for the security of main departmental stores in order to ensure smooth supplies of the daily-use items to the public.
The police has also resolved to improve its intelligence network to check hoarding and enhance their community engagement to help the public by providing all the relevant assistance, something it displayed during the last rain emergency.
IGP’s directions
IGP Mahar has also been issuing directions to the police to take action wherever they see gatherings of more than four people either on streets, highways and roads, or in motor vehicles.
The IGP has also advised the people to avoid travelling as much as they can and said they should only come outside when it is very necessary. The police chief also expressed gratitude to the people for voluntarily following the safety guidelines and precautions of the Sindh government against the outbreak of coronavirus.
The provincial police chief also praised the business community for voluntarily observing the directions of the government to keep markets shut as a precaution against the viral epidemic. He directed his subordinates to sympathise with the people because they “are passing through an extraordinary situation”.
In his message, IGP Mahar said the police in the coming weeks and months had to play an important role. “It is very much possible that this crisis will get intensified with each passing day, and we have to continue to perform our duties to maintain law and order. We have to adopt a new procedure of policing.”
He advised the cops that while enforcing the law in the prevalent circumstances, they should not consider those defying the government’s lockdown orders as usual law-breakers. “It is unfortunate that we are arresting such people who have been personally bearing the brunt of the current situation. We should treat such persons with due caution and sympathy. It is time to take the public into confidence, and personages of different areas should also be involved in this situation.”
The IGP told the police not to use power but instead handle the present situation with a proper strategy and humility. He asked the field police officers and personnel to start the process of contacting the elders of different areas to convince the people to adopt the precautionary measures against COVID-19.
Through such a process, low-income people living in those localities could be identified so that besides enforcing the law, the police could also help such persons by providing them with whatever they need, the officer remarked. “We have to act as facilitators instead of just law enforcers. We should compile a list of philanthropists who can provide such needy with food and medicines. We have to become a bridge between the poor and the affluent people.”
The IGP also called on representatives of the shanty settlements to remain in touch with the offices of the respective deputy inspectors general (DIGs) for the provision of food and water to the residents of the shanty towns.
“The cooperation of the media should be availed to portray to the people the real people-friendly face of the police while keeping in view the reality that police officers and personnel have been doing their best to secure the lives of the masses.”
Lockdown directives
Mahar in his directive to his subordinates, including all the range DIGs and district SSPs of Sindh, to the home department notification on the lockdown and told them to implement the new orders.
The IGP told the police to ensure that the grocery and departmental stores remained closed during the notified timings. The same rule also applies to medical stores, except those that are within public or private hospitals or adjacent to them.
The police were directed to ensure that no industries, except those related to essential food items and medicines and other related items for domestic consumption, operated at any time of the day.
IGP Mahar told the police force that all the industrial units producing any non-essential items must remain closed as the gathering of factory workers could help spread COVID-19. “In this regard, I am directed to convey you additional measures and guidelines as it has become extremely urgent to implement [them] for the purpose of breaking the chain of spread of the virus and police shall ensure implementation of such guidelines in letter and spirit,” the IGP’s directive read.
Citizen-monitoring app
The Sindh police’s Security and Emergency Service Division has also launched a ‘Citizen Monitoring App’ to limit the movement of citizens amid the ongoing lockdown.
Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Maqsood Ahmed Memon, chief of the security division, following directives issued by IGP Mahar and Additional IG Memon, launched a mobile application titled ‘Citizens Monitoring App’ with the aim of restricting the movement of citizens amid the government-imposed lockdown.
The application will be installed in the mobile phones of police officers deputed at police checkpoints, who would record citizens’ movements in the application. So far, 500 officials deployed at different checkpoints have had the application installed in their cellphones.
Legal action would be initiated against any citizen found moving more than twice a day. The data of citizens will be entered into the application, including the CINC number, phone number, location and reason of commuting.
Tableeghi Jamaat centres
The Sindh police chief also barred the entry of new people at the Tableeghi Jamaat centres in Sindh being used as quarantine facilities.
Officials said the IGP Sindh had directed the field police officials to make sure no new people were entering the centres of the Tableeghi Jamaat in the province being used as quarantine facilities for the suspected coronavirus cases among the Jamaat members. The area police officials have been asked to prepare lists of the Tableeghi Jamaat’s centres and the people staying there. They been told to send the data the central police office at the earliest.
Sale of charity food
The Karachi additional IG also directed his force to deal with the citizens politely as they perform their duties to enforce a government-imposed lockdown to fight coronavirus.
He gave instructions to the range DIGs and district SSPs in the meeting to ensure peace and security in Karachi during the coronavirus emergency. He stated that there was frustration in the public and it might increase if the situation created by the coronavirus emergency did not improve. In that case, he added, the police had to keep their reserves in the "ready to move mode” in order to deal with any unpleasant situation.
According to the instructions given by Memon, the police will ensure a crackdown against those persons who are making this difficult time an opportunity by collecting rations from different organisations and selling them in the market. In this regard, the media has been requested to highlight and encourage the public to inform the police about such swindlers so that effective action may be taken against them. A drive against hoarding and overpricing will also be carried out in coordination with the district administration.
Sealing 11 UCs
Another issued arose when the district administration of East had asked the LEAs to sealed 11 UC of District East upon which LEAs informed the relevant quarters that it is not that much easy and share their views and policies to implement the decision. Talking to The News, senior LEAs officials said they had gone through the order and called a meeting to make a strategy for their implementation.
They added that it was not that easy to seal the areas of 11 UCs as already the law enforcers were facing resistance from the public during the lockdown and now they had to made a comprehensive strategy to seal the 11 UCs.
Moreover, they would also have to plan for ensuring basic requirements of the law enforcers to be deployed in these areas that include food supplies and lavatories. They said they also had to plan preventive measures for the officials of police and Rangers to be deployed in the affected areas and supply of medical equipment for them. Similarly, the LEAs would have to form a strategy for the replacement of their personnel at the end of their duty timings.
They said they had ordered the station house officers (SHOs) and sub-divisional police officers (SDPOs) to mark positions and count streets in these areas so that they could send a proposal to the government for the supply of containers and barbwires to seal the areas.
Presently, a large number of police and Rangers personnel have already been deployed in the city, especially on major thoroughfares, to implement the lockdown. However, to enhance the lockdown in the said UCs, the law enforcers would need containers and barbwire, the senior officers said, adding that once the government provided them those, they would start sealing the areas which would take two days to complete.
