The Punjab police adamantly disputed Geo Fact Check’s report which showed a 46% surge in registered crimes across the province in 2023. But the provincial police has failed to present any data, facts, or evidence supporting their department’s stance, to date.
On May 13, Geo Fact Check released a report refuting the assertions made by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who claimed a notable 30% reduction in crime rates during his tenure as caretaker chief minister Punjab in 2023.
Naqvi had headed the province from January 2023 to February 2024.
Contrary to Naqvi’s statements, a factual analysis conducted by Geo Fact Check revealed a stark reality: registered cases of all crimes had in fact surged by 46% in 2023 compared to 2022, showed official police data and that documented by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
In fact, heinous crimes such as rape, gang rape, murder and acid attacks witnessed a significant increase over the past year in the province.
In response to Geo Fact Check’s findings, the Punjab police issued a press release on May 15, denying the accuracy of the report while asserting that several critical factors had been overlooked by the fact check.
The press release claimed that a policy was rolled out in 2023 which allowed for the free registration of crimes. Due to which all old cases and first information reports (FIRs) which could not be recorded in the online system in the year 2022, were instead registered in 2023.
Specifically, the press release addressed the category of "crime against properties," claiming that over 130,000 cases from this category, unregistered in 2022, were added in 2023, therefore bringing the overall tally of 2023 up.
Curiously, the press release ignored all other categories of crimes.
Furthermore, the release claimed that the true measure of crime rate lies in the calls received on the police helpline (15), which purportedly reduced by 30% in 2023.
In an attempt to verify the Punjab police's assertions, Geo Fact Check reached out to Punjab’s Inspector General Police, Dr Usman Anwar.
Requests were made for copies of all FIRs not recorded in the 2022 tally but added in 2023, specifically cases of rape, gang rape, murder, honor killing, dacoity, acid attacks, attempted murder, kidnapping and abduction, kidnapping and ransom, robbery, motor vehicle theft, and hurt.
Geo Fact Check sent multiple follow-up reminders via email and WhatsApp starting May 15 to Dr. Usman Anwar to provide data supporting the claims of the Punjab police.
He finally replied over a month later on June 15 and invited Geo Fact Check’s team to meet with the Assistant Inspector General of Operations Zahid Nawaz Marwat on June 24.
But Nawaz referred Geo Fact Check to the Deputy Superintendent Monitoring Punjab (DSP) for the required data.
Even after waiting for the data for 10 days, the DSP only sent Geo Fact Check a simple Microsoft Excel sheet which listed 8,089 cases of “delayed FIRs”, which he claimed were the crimes of 2022 registered in 2023.
Out of the 8,089 crimes, 2,009 FIRs were recorded as “crime against properties”. When in its May press release, the police had insisted that in the category of "crime against properties” alone, over 130,000 cases remained unregistered in 2022 and were later added to the system in 2023.
Not only that, the Microsoft Excel Sheet provided an FIR number for only some cases, making it difficult for Geo Fact Check to independently verify if the information provided by the police was even accurate.
Neither did the Excel sheet provide any information about the number of heinous crimes in 2023, as was requested by Geo Fact Check.
Geo Fact Check stands by its report.
