LAHORE: The recent massive reshuffle in the Punjab Police hierarchy has brought to the limelight six districts, including five those newly created by the previous government. The reshuffle under Inspector General of Police Dr Usman Anwar includes posting of a superintendent of police (SP) third time as the district police officer (DPO) Mandi Bahauddin. This ‘particular decision’ of the IGP has raised many questions, including that of ‘neutrality’ as the officer was transferred from the same slot twice over multiple issues in the recent past.
The IGP also removed the DPOs of four out of five newly created districts and assigned the heads of the other districts to manage the posts on the temporary basis, leaving the other one absolutely ‘unattended’. The districts include Wazirabad, Murree, Talagang, Kot Addu and Taunsa Sharif. Of them, Murree has been given the status of the district to be run effectively by a police officer as its head in the wake of some deaths of the stranded tourists in January last year. An official, privy to the development, says the caretaker government has recently changed the entire police command of the province by posting new regional and district police officers besides making similar changes in Lahore.
He says the police circles had raised questions about the new appointments of many police officers when the Punjab government not only posted inexperienced officers in the field but also changed the districts of some others after interviews. However, the appointment of a police officer third time as the head of the same district and removal of four DPOs of newly created districts kicked off a debate on the decision of the IGP. The official source says the independent police circles have declared it a highly risky initiative to leave the districts to be run on the ‘look-after basis’ in the wake of the general election.
During elections, he says, several districts, including some of those mentioned above, have been reporting violence and it will be challenging for the police officers to run two districts with ‘divided mind’ to maintain law & order in the wake of the heated political campaigns and activity, especially on the polling day. Like, the official says, Wazirabad is close to the hometown of the former chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi due to the party vote bank and his political affiliation with the locals. A BPS-18 police officer, Farooq Amjad, has been posted as the first Wazirabad DPO while Faraz was appointed as Murree DPO, Hassan Bin Iqbal at Talagang and Tanvir Ahmad Malik as Kot Addu DPO.
About appointment for Mandi Bahauddin, the official says the IG Punjab has posted BPS-18 SP Sajid Khokhar as the DPO of the district. He says that in the first week of December 2021, he was transferred from the post of DPO Mandi Bahauddin in the wake of the attack on the then district and sessions judge. At that time, the police had failed to maintain law and order in the court when it came under attack by a group of lawyers. Mr Khokhar was again made DPO Mandi Bahauddin in July last year and was transferred from the same slot just 20 days after his appointment.
His reappointment as the DPO of the same district on Monday raised eyebrows of the police circles who claimed that either the IGP Punjab was not briefed properly about the previous postings of Mr Khokhar or he (the IGP) was under certain pressure to allot him the said particular district. When contacted, DIG (Headquarters) Humayun Bashir Tarar, on behalf of the provincial police chief, said the separate appointments of the DPOs for the new districts could not be made due to delay in the allocation of independent funds to run them for a better administration.
About the posting of Sajid Khokhar, he said that his appointment had nothing to do with the general election and it was rather aimed at fighting crime. He added that Mandi Bahauddin was reporting high crime and the decision was made to post him as the DPO, keeping in view his past experience of heading the district twice.
(Daily Dawn)
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