GUJRAT: The number of phone calls made to police emergency 15 have reduced significantly in Gujranwala region following the formation of the Crime Control Department more than two months ago.

Official sources in the CCD said at least 45 phone calls were received daily by the Gujranwala emergency service prior to the launch of CCD but now the number of calls had reduced to seven or eight per day in Gujranwala city.

Similarly in Gujrat, such calls were around 15 per day but now three to four caseswere reported daily, he said and added the Sialkot district had seen 50 per cent drop whereas the ratio in Mandi Bahauddin, Hafizabad, Narowal and Wazirabad districts had also decreased.

It is learnt that the Gujranwala CCD has been asked to expedite the process to extradite a large number of fugitives belonging to the region who were wanted in mainly in murder cases.

A senior CCD official told Dawn that so far around 27 outlaws belonging to Gujranwala region had been arrested by the CCD through the Interpol.

Another source said the CCD had so far lodged 205 cases with its police stations acrossthe region.

These cases mostly included encounters with hardened criminals and suspects involved in selling drugs, display of weapons and other heinous crimes.

He said 361 old cases of heinous nature had been handed over to the Gujranwala CCD region for investigation and different teams were working hard to complete the investigation well in time.

Gujranwala CCD regional officer SSP Mansoor Amaan has recently conducted interactive sessions with representatives of different civil society organisations by going to every district of the region to take them into confidence onthe objectives and working of the CCD.

Mr Amaan was quoted as telling the participants of these meetings that the CCD had been constituted to handle the cases of organised crime and it`s primary role was to investigate the cases of heinous nature.

Adding, he said that the CCD would not allow the display of weapons on the occasion of weddings. It is pertinent to mention that a PML-N MNA from Lalamusa town Naseer Abbas Sidhu had submitted a privilege motion in the National Assembly against the Gujranwala region CCD head, Gujrat district CCD head DSP Aamir Sheerazi and other offi-cials for arresting his security guard from outside a wedding marquee a couple of weeks ago.

Official sources said 250 criminals had so far been killed in encounters with the CCD across Punjab.

PunjabInformationMinister Azma Bukhari told media in Lahore the the crime rate had come down by 60 per cent in the province since the CCD formation.

Some media reports claimed that the CCD had prepared a list of hardened criminals who were being chased by the police ofconcerned districts.

However, a CCD spokesman denied any such list in Punjab and blamed some social activists for sharing fake lists.