LARKANA: IGP Sindh Ghulam Nabi Memon spoke to the media after presiding over a high-level meeting with officers of Larkana and Sukkur ranges at SSP office Larkana here on Monday and said that the instructions of the Sindh government are to conduct police intelligence based operations and the government has full support.

That is why we are trying to provide the people with full relief, he said. He said that there are small pockets in Shikarpur, Kashmore-Kandhkot, Ghotki and Sukkur districts where bandits lure people and kidnap them for ransom, but the police have been working under the plan for a few weeks, and the cases of kidnapping for ransom have reduced considerably, he said.

He said the abduction for ransom issue started from 2013 and today the law and order situation is much better because when you go into a fighting situation, there will definitely be losses, so we tell the police officers that you are trained and you should follow SOPs, you will not harm yourself but the enemy.

He said that the police have killed 29 bandits in Shikarpur, Kashmore, Ghotki and Sukkur districts in the past four months and 45 have been gunned down in police encounters. Besides, 231 robbers have been arrested by the police, he added. He said that criminals use different tactics to lower the morale of the police, but the media should not show such things to the public.

He said that earlier bandits used to kidnap people from four provinces for ransom and bring them here, which is not acceptable in any way, so we have two strategies under which the police rescued 165 people from being kidnapped for ransom and in 2022 we saved 472 people from being abducted for ransom, he added. Memon said that such issues also persist in other provinces also including Punjab but we need media cooperation.

He said that we are trying to form a strategy in consultation with Punjab and Balochistan police so that we could keep an eye over criminals' movements, supply of arms to them and their other activities.

He said that our criminal justice system has failed due to which problems have surfaced. He said had there been energy in our criminal justice system police would have given better results. He said police have always been accused of not carrying out proper investigation which also is true to some extent but we have improved much in this field as well. He said we are updating our police to become experts in investigations.

He said that unemployment and price hikes have also multiplied problems. He said that the criminals who should be punished are not getting it, at present the police have the ability to trace 60% of the cases despite the limited resources and the work of the police in this system is very difficult but the victory is always for the right, he added.

He said there is zero tolerance for black sheep among the police. He said that it is the responsibility of the police to prevent crimes by fighting bandits and terrorists, which we are doing, society should also help us so that we can eliminate criminals as we have the best police officers who are working.