LAHORE: Lahore Police have widened the scope of their operations against electricity theft, with more than 12,000 cases registered and 13,800 people arrested in the city this year.
According to details, 13,800 people were arrested on charges of electricity theft during various operations in the city over the course of the year. A spokesperson for Lahore Police said more than 12,000 cases were registered at different police stations across the city in connection with power theft, while 46 accused nominated in those cases have already been declared proclaimed offenders.
The spokesperson said action against elements involved in electricity theft is continuing without discrimination, and that the net is also being tightened around those who manufacture the devices used to steal electricity.
Lahore Police said the process of taking under-investigation power theft cases to their logical conclusion at speed is also under way.
Electricity theft in Punjab is prosecuted principally under the Electricity Act and related provisions, with complaints typically initiated by the distribution company and cases registered by the local police. Enforcement drives are usually conducted jointly, with distribution company teams identifying illegal connections, tampered meters or bypassed metering equipment, and police registering the case and effecting arrests.
The reference to action against manufacturers marks a shift in approach. Prosecutions have historically focused on end users caught with direct hooks on distribution lines or with tampered meters, while the supply chain that produces meter-tampering devices, magnets and bypass equipment has drawn far less attention. Pursuing that chain requires investigation work rather than field raids, and typically involves tracing recovered devices back to their point of sale or assembly.
The declaration of 46 accused as proclaimed offenders points to a familiar bottleneck. A proclaimed offender is a person who has failed to appear before a court despite notice and against whom proceedings have been initiated for absconding. In cases involving large numbers of nominated accused, non-appearance can stall trials for months and inflate pendency without producing convictions.
Power theft and unrecovered dues remain among the most significant drains on the country’s power sector, feeding into transmission and distribution losses that are ultimately passed on to paying consumers through tariff adjustments. Lahore, as the largest urban load centre in Punjab, accounts for a substantial share of both consumption and reported theft.
Police did not provide a breakdown of convictions secured against the volume of cases registered, nor the value of electricity assessed as stolen in the cases now before the courts.
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