People belonging to different segments of society participating in a discussion on police reforms on Wednesday called for appointing a police ombudsman to redress public grievances against the police, besides constituting safety and police complaint commissions at provincial level.
They voiced their concern over the existing trust deficit between the police and citizens at a healthy discussion held under the aegis of Shehri — Citizens for a Better Environment, a non-governmental organisation(NGO), lawyers, students, rights activists, representatives of civil society and media persons had a consensus that public pressure should be built up for police reforms, which were immensely needed in the country’s current security situation.
Other issues highlighted at the program included police training, human rights sensitization in the deptt, police behaviour with public, targeted killings, rape cases, and traffic police inefficiency in managing the city’s ever-increasing vehicular population.
Shehri’s project director Gulmina Bilal Ahmad, whose task is to develop the human rights sensitization within the institution of police, said each year her organisation invited the nomination of 30 police personnels from all the 4 federating units of the country and had trained 395 police officials till date.
