People who are using police to facilitate their eviction in the National Capital District and Central province are warned to follow the right process to engage police officers if they need police assistance.
The Commander of NCD and Central Provinces, Chief Superintendent Benjamin Turi, had issued a warning to all police officers in his command that no eviction must be carried out by police officers without approval from his office. He directed the NCD Metropolitan Superintendent or Central Provincial Police Commander to assign police units to assist in carrying out evictions. He said there had been complaints of people evicting without approval from his office.
The process of police engagement in carrying out eviction is as follows,
- Property or land owners must provide all court or legal documents provided by a competent court or land courts clearly stating that the person who will be engaging police to carry out eviction is the genuine land or property owner.
- The legal officers and my officers will then go through the documents provided to confirm to make sure that all the documents such as court order, land or property title, and ejectment order from the court are in order.
- After the verification of the information the office of the commander will then issue an instruction to the office of Metsupt if the eviction will be taking place in NCD and to PPC Central if it will take place in Central province.
- The Met-supt and PPC Central will then do an instruction instructing police commanders to assign a police unit from their sections or divisions to assist in providing security during the eviction.
Commander Turi said eviction exercise is a very sensitive issue and the office of the Commander NCD/Central is responsible for giving directives to police officers to carry out evictions in his command.
He said there had been instances where police officers who were not authorized by the NCD/Central Commander`s officer who provided security to property or land owners had caused dissatisfaction amongst the settlers and the person who claimed to be the land owner.
He said an example of that is the eviction at Morobe Block two months ago where police officers were with a group of people who claimed to be landowners who went to do an eviction that resulted in a police shooting. He said the investigation into the shooting at Morobe Block is on foot and the police officers involved will be arrested and charged.
“With that, I want to call on the general public if you become a victim of eviction please make sure you confirm that the police officers who are there have documents that have signatures and stamps from my office authorizing police officers to provide security at the eviction sites.
I also want to call on the public who are handpicking police officers anywhere to assist you with your eviction without my authorization that you must be prepared to look after the police officers when they are dismissed from the force. I am their boss and I will instruct them to go if I see that the documents provided are legal, Commander Turi said.