LAHORE: The Lahore Police have been directed to put in place a foolproof security arrangement for Eid Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH) processions and religious gatherings across the city, while simultaneously tightening the net around street criminals and proclaimed offenders.
According to an official statement issued following a high-level meeting at Police Lines, the review session was chaired by DIG Operations Lahore Faisal Kamran and attended by the SSP Operations, divisional SPs and SHOs from across the metropolitan area. The meeting was convened to assess ground-level implementation of the Chief Minister Punjab’s “Safe Punjab” vision.
Officers were instructed to ensure effective patrolling and foolproof security at processions, mehfils and sensitive locations. With religious gatherings drawing large crowds across densely populated localities of Lahore, the directive places responsibility for route security and crowd management directly on divisional commanders and station house officers.
The meeting placed particular emphasis on the treatment of women complainants. Police stations have been directed to provide a safe and dignified environment for women visitors and to act immediately on their complaints. The instruction reflects a long-standing public concern about accessibility at the thana level — an area where the Punjab Police has repeatedly sought to reform its front-desk culture.
To tackle theft, robbery and petty offences, officers were told to identify crime hotspots and adopt a comprehensive, data-informed strategy around them. Hotspot policing — concentrating patrol strength on the small number of locations where a disproportionate share of incidents occur — has become the standard operational model in urban policing worldwide, and its formal adoption in Lahore signals a shift from reactive response to preventive deployment.
The DIG Operations directed that intelligence-based operations against habitual criminals and proclaimed offenders be accelerated. Proclaimed offenders — absconders declared by the courts — remain a persistent enforcement backlog in Punjab, and targeted operations against them are viewed as central to reducing repeat offending.
The statement was unambiguous on one point: unjustified delay in the registration of citizens’ applications and cases will not be tolerated in any circumstances. Delayed or refused FIR registration has historically been among the most common public grievances against police in the province.
The DIG Operations stated that the protection of citizens’ lives and property, along with the best possible police service delivery, must be the foremost priority of every police officer. With the Eid Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH) calendar approaching, the coming days will offer the first indication of how closely the directives issued at Police Lines are being followed on the ground.
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