ISLAMABAD - The National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP) is facing great shortage of uniform and non-uniform staff that is over 3,452, which is affecting the performance of the department. "The NH&MP is facing shortage of staff that is over 3,452 due to which the performance of the department is affected", NH&MP Inspector General Muhammad Raffat Pasha stated during a briefing to the Communications Secretary Saifullah Khan at NH&MP Headquarter on Thursday.   The IG also said that fence on M-1 and M-2 has been damaged at many places and it creates hurdles for smooth flow of traffic and also causing accidents, therefore, it needs repairing on priority basis. Muhammad Raffat Pasha said about 1.2 million people annually lose their lives in traffic accidents all over the world and the casualties in Pakistan in traffic accidents is also alarmingly high. "However, Motorway Police created a sense of better discipline on roads, created awareness of Road Safety and also succeeded to lower the accident rate up to 70 percent. At present, the Motorway Police is policing on M-1, M-2, M-3, N-5 (from Peshawar to Karachi) and N-10 (Coastal Highway from Passni to Gwadar). The soft policing has been started on RCD Highway from March and proper policing on RCD will be started soon", He said.   He added that the N-75 (Islamabad-Murree Expressway) and N-35 (Hassanabdal-Mansehra dual carriageway) would also be taken over by motorway police soon. He said that in the last 11 years, Motorway Police enforced equal application of law irrespective of one's rank or status and also changed the hard policing into soft and punitive policing into reformative policing. He said the NH&MP is providing daily help to more than 2,700 road users and service of helpline 130 is also available round the clock. He further said NH&MP also became successful in reducing the highway crimes by 85 percent and in last two years more than 500 run-away/kidnapped and lost children were recovered and were handed over to their parents. Secretary Communicatios Saif Ullah Khan Sherwani while addressing the media said the National Highways & Motorway Police is the only department of the country, which can be compared with any police department of the world and nation is proud of it. He said the dedication shown by the NH&MP has full depth in spite of so many obstacles and bottlenecks. The Communications Secretary also directed the NH&MP that the summary of pending cases of creation of posts may be submitted to the Ministry of Communications so that it could be taken up with the Finance Division.