TAXILA: The police in the district of Attock are facing difficulties in discharging their duty due to a shortage of manpower as at present they have only 2,300 personnel.

The police force, headed by the district police officer (DPO), consists of one ASP, five subdivisional police officers (SDPOs), one SDPO (legal), 15 inspectors, 165 sub-inspectors, 228 assistant sub-inspectors, 320 head constables, 1,389 constables and 19 women constables. The posts of the SP investigation, two DSPs, SPDO (legal), 15 inspectors, eight inspectors (legal), 26 sub-inspectors, 19 ASIs, 138 head constables and five women constables are lying.

Due to the paucity of staff, the police are overworked while there is also a shortage of facilities in the police stations.

Sources in the police told this reporterthatbecause oftheshortage of manpower they kept on performing duties round the clock. They saidthe provincial gover nment had built new police stations but there were no sweepers and cooks forcing the police to arrange cooks and sweepers on their own.

They said the police officials were neither being provided accommodation nor schooling for their children.

Most of the officials live in rented rooms in an unhygienic environment. They said if the rulers wanted to bring a change in the police they should recruit more constables and provide them facilities. They said the police personnel performing duties round the clock were even not given weekend leaves.

When contacted, Mr Tahir, a spokesman for the district police, saidreportsaboutthepaucityofstaff and officers were regularly being submitted to the provincial police headquartersin Lahore.

In reply to a question, he said there was a shortage of police staff across the province. The paucity of personnel, including women constables, would be addressed soon after passing out of the newly-recruited batch.