LAHORE:Prosecutor General Punjab Farhad Ali Shah visited Central Police Office on Saturday and met IGP Punjab Dr Usman Anwar, and both jointly chaired a meeting, which was attended by all regional police officers (RPOs), city police officers (CPOs), district police officers (DPOs), district public prosecutors through video-link.
Deputy Prosecutor Generals Sultan Akbar Chatta, Arshad Ali Farooqui, Ahmad Saeed, Usman Iqbal, Abdul Quddus, District Public Prosecutor Lahore Imtiaz Cheema were present in the meeting.
It was decided in the meeting that direct coordination between the Central Police Office and the Prosecutor General Punjab would be made more effective. The prosecutor general Punjab and IGP Punjab signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) about the working standard operating procedures (SOPs).
The IGP said all units including the police and prosecution had an important and equal role in the criminal justice system. A plan of action was finalised in the meeting to complete challans of the pending cases of the last four years. The prosecutor general Punjab said he would provide a special team of prosecutors to complete the challans in the next 14 days, joint efforts would be made to remove loopholes, causing delay in cases under investigation.
The IGP Punjab said joint teams consisting of police and prosecutors would work together on the challans of the cases under investigation. The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) should take effective measures to update the data of under-investigation cases on the software mechanism. The IGP further said that seminars for police and prosecutors would be organised for functional specialization and prosecutorial conduct. He said that to reduce the workload in the investigation wing, additional human resources had been provided after the departmental promotion process. He said that there were challenges due to increasing population and special focus was being given to follow-up of cases and accountability. Prosecutor General Punjab said that there is excellent coordination between the DPOs and district public prosecutors in all districts.
Additional IG Investigation Muhammad Idrees, DIG Legal Kamran Adil, DIG Investigation Lahore Zeeshan Asghar, DIG Organised Crime Unit Imran Kishwar, SSP Investigation Anoosh Masood, AIG Monitoring, AIG Legal. Senior officers also attended the meeting.