LAHORE: Punjab police has decided to move the provincial authorities to approach the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government with a request to crack down on stolen vehicles racket.

The decision was taken at the regional police officers (RPO) conference chaired by Inspector General of Police Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera through video link on Tuesday.

Talcing note of intelligence reports that most of the vehicles lifted or snatched from Punjab are driven to KP, the IGP directed the field officers to prepare a list of gangs involved in this crime.

A police official told Dawn the RPOs conference was shocked to learn that the KP had turned into a big market for stolen and snatched vehicles, specially from Punjab.

According to the Punjab police statistics, 10,442 motor vehicle theft cases were registered all over the province from January to July this year and most of the vehicles were taken to KP. The conference requested to the IGP to take the Punjab government on board on this issue.

After finalizing the list of criminals operating from KP and evidence of their involvement, the IGP would present the data to the chief minister.

The conference also reviewed security arrangements for Eidul Azha, implementation of the National Action Plan, overall crime situation, security of Chinese and worship places in Punjab.

The conference decided to depute 51,974 policemen and officials for security duty on the eve of Eidul Azha.

About the implementation of the National Action Plan, the IGP was told that during last eight months 29,093 search operations were conducted during which 4,535 cases were registered in Punjab. The police also registered 3,633 cases under the Foreign Act.

Statistics presented in the conference showed 28 per cent overall crime decrease, particularly heinous crimes like murder.

The conference decided geo-tagging of mosques and other worship places after completing the geo-tagging of seminaries.

Security of the Chinese experts working on various development projects of the Punjab government was reviewed in detail and the role of 2500 officials of Special Protection Unit deployed with the Chinese was also discussed in conference.

The conference was told that the solar system which was installed in three police stations in Toba Tek Singh was successfully working and water filters were being installed in police stations.