People raise concern over sale of police uniforms

By GEORGINA KOREI
East Sepik people have raised concern regarding the sale of police uniforms in commercial shops, a senior police official says.
Assistant Commissioner of Police border command Peter Philip told The National that this was an illegal and unlawful activity.
“It is unlawful for any police uniform to be sold in any commercial shops,” he said.
Philip said the concern for police uniforms being sold in shops had been brought to his attention after posts on social media by some of the province’s prominent individuals.
He said police uniforms were State-issued and could not be sold openly in any commercial shops because they could be bought by those wanting to impersonate police officers and commit crimes.
“When commercial shops sell these police uniforms to the public then this opens the opportunity for more hold-ups and robberies using those police uniforms,” he said.
Philip said after the concern was raised, he ordered all provincial police commanders and station commanders in East Sepik, West Sepik and Western to search and confiscate all police items sold in shops.
“I have ordered all the provincial police commanders and station commanders under my command to search all the shops and confiscate all the police safety vests, caps, belts and bags,” he said.
Philip said it was good that the public saw the risk and raised their concerns to the relevant authorities so that necessary actions were taken to avoid crimes to happen.
“Most of these police uniforms are used in criminal activities such as robberies and hold-ups, so police men will do a search, confiscate all these police items and report back to me by the end of this week.”