The Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) Director General, Dr Rizwan Naseer stated that the Service has received 5.89 million calls in 2008 in all major cities of Punjab, which include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, D.G. Khan, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Sialkot and Murree.
These emergency calls in all major cities of Punjab include 2.43 per cent emergency calls, 7.39 per cent information seeking calls, 25.82 per cent distorted/dropped calls, 1.18 per cent wrong number calls, 0.13 per cent fake emergency calls and 63.02 per cent obnoxious calls.
As a result of the effective monitoring and call recording software developed by the Service, the fake emergency calls were identified timely and restricted to 0.13 per cent. These 7929 fake calls were identified timely and fake emergency responses were restricted to only 567.
The repeated irrelevant/obnoxious callers are blocked so that the emergency callers do not find the number busy and can be provided timely help in case of any emergency. However, sudden increase in number sometimes results in failure of the availability of emergency number, which is very unfortunate. There are some regular pranksters who made large number of calls per day just for sake of fun.
However, the overall numbers still continues to increase therefore, the Service may finally be left with no other option to take necessary legal action, which includes imprisonment for six months or with fine of rupees 50,000 or both.
Dr Rizwan Naseer said that it is the duty and moral responsibility of every citizen to respect the emergency number 1122. He said that we would still prefer that the citizens understand the significance and importance of emergency number and not try to deprive the emergency victims of their right to be provided timely rescue and emergency medical treatment so that we do not have to initiate criminal proceedings against such obnoxious callers.