ISLAMABAD: Rawalpindi police have issued a new security plan for 100 sensitive imambargahs across the division due to recent bomb blast at an imambargah and the overall precarious law and order situation in the city.
Rawalpindi RPO Muhammad Azam, in a letter dispatched to all the three DPOs and CPO of Rawalpindi, has instructed them to thrash out a comprehensive security plan in collaboration with the administrations for 100 sensitive imambargahs to ward off or reduce the risk of a similar attack in the future. Under the new security plan, police would train volunteers at the Police Lines and at least four volunteers along with one police perform duty outside every imambargah.
Similarly, barbwires will be mounted on boundary walls of each and every imambargah, besides installing security cameras at the entrance and rear side of imambargahs.
According to the new security plan, at least one volunteer would perform security duty inside the imambargah.
Similarly, security pickets would be set up outside very sensitive imambargahs to ensure foolproof security for prayers. On the other hand, after the Islamabad police rebuffed a request for security, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) administration has approached a private security company to hire security guards and other necessary defensive gears.
Hospital sources told Online that the PIMS administration had requested the Islamabad police to make available police personnel for the hospital’s security, but the police blatantly refused to entertain the request, arguing that guarding such a vast area would require a lot of resources, including manpower, which they lacked. After a senior cardiologist was fatally shot in the head by unidentified assailants in the premises of the hospital, and a newborn went missing a month ago, the PIMS administration had been scrambling to tighten security for the hospital to avoid recurring of such episodes in the future. Hospital sources said that the private security company would provide 41 guards, a security officer and four vehicles to perform round-the-clock duty in shifts.
As part of the new security measures, 52 security cameras would also be installed at different places.
Similarly, at least 10 security pickets would be set up at different locations of the hospital. The sources said that the Special Branch of the police had only provided walkthrough gates to the hospitals, which would be installed in front of Emergency Department, OPD, Children Ward, General Ward and Officers’ Ward.
