A new search and stop strategy for Dolphin Squad in Lahore has been introduced that advises the officials to remain patrolling during duty hours and only stop to search a suspicious individual or any unusual activity.
According to Express News, an officer said that the new standard operating procedure (SOP) for the ‘elite’ wing of Lahore Police is a result of an argument between the high-ups to emphasize the core responsibility (patrolling) of Dolphin Squad to ensure an urgent response to ’15’ emergency calls and the necessity of squad officials and heavy bikes to take a break during their eight hours shift.
Talking about the new guideline, the officer stated that Dolphin Squad is held accountable for any delay in responding to police as they are responsible for covering Lahore’s population that is over 120 million and further stretched over hundreds of square kilometers. He said that they have been struggling very hard to maintain an average response duration of seven minutes.
The load on Dolphin Force has doubled after the Minar-e-Pakistan harassment incident as the government and the Prime Minister expressed disappointment due to the delayed police response regardless of repeated calls from the affected party. Punjab Law Minister, Raja Basharat, was asked to take steps to improve call response from 15 with the assistance of the Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA).
Rao Sardar Ali Khan, who was the managing director of PSCA at that time, chaired an inquiry meeting to take action against such incidents. After taking up the charge of Inspector General of Police (IGP) Rao Sardar laid further stress on the Dolphin Squad to stay in motion rather than being static.
Another officer stated that the squad members need a break after patrolling in harsh weather for long durations. He said that it is really hard to handle heavy bikes on roads like Lahore as the body gets exhausted after one or two hours of riding. It gets even tough in the summers when the temperature rises to 48-50 degrees for a heavy biker with their suit on.
Follow ProPakistani on Google News & scroll through your favourite content faster!
Support independent journalism
If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to the world, we’d love to have you on our side. If you can, please support us on a monthly basis. It takes less than a minute to set up, and you can rest assured that you’re making a big impact every single month in support of open, independent journalism. Thank you.
