by Asif Chaudhry in Dawn, February 21st, 2023
LAHORE: While five police officers senior to Inspector General of Police Punjab Usman Anwar are awaiting postings in the province, three more police officers have been relieved of their duties from the province.
The tricky situation in the police department has become disturbing, particularly, for the five police officers senior to the incumbent provincial police chief.
Of them, two senior police officers, Kanwar Shahrukh and Ghulam Rasool Zahid, have served as acting IGP Punjab, Ehsan Sadiq and Sahibzada Shahzad Sultan as South Punjab IGP while B.A. Nasir as the Lahore capital city police officer (CCPO).
An official privy to the development says the chances of these police officers for new appointment in Punjab are very bleak as they are senior to the provincial police chief Usman Anwar who was from 23rd Common.
B.A. Nasir, Kanwar Shahrukh, Ghulam Rasool Zahid and Ehsan Sadiq are from 19th while Shahzad Sultan from 21st Common.
The official source says these five police officers are ‘paying heavy cost of seniority’ ahead of appointment of a junior police officer as the Punjab Police chief. He says the same situation had arisen earlier when BPS-21 Aamir Zulfiqar was made the IGP last December, adding that the then provincial government had made four colleagues of Mr Zulfiqar officers on special duty (OSDs) for being from the same batch (19th Common). They included the then additional IGP Punjab (investigation) Ghulam Rasool Zahid, additional IG establishment B.A. Nasir, additional IG south Punjab Ehsan Sadiq and the then additional IG welfare Farooq Mazhar. Of these police officers, the Punjab government later relieved Mazhar of his duties from the province, putting him at the disposal of the Establishment Division, Islamabad and leaving the others to wait for postings in the province.
Aamir Zulfiqar, the source says, was transferred from his post of provincial police chief when the caretaker government was formed in Punjab, raising hopes for the abovementioned senior police officers to get new postings in the province as they were expecting appointment of the new provincial police officer of BPS-22. However, bad luck continued to hunt them when the federal government appointed another junior police officer (Usman Anwar) as the IGP who was from 23rd Common, dashing all the hopes of appointments in the province.
Following the previous practice, the official says, the Punjab government removed more BPS-21 police officers from their respective positions to ‘facilitate’ Mr Usman as it had done when Mr Zulfiqar was made the IGP.
Currently, over 90pc of the total BPS-21 slots in Punjab are occupied by the BPS-20 police officers, he adds.
The Punjab government has repatriated three police officers from Punjab to the Establishment Division (ED) Islamabad.
According to the notification, the Punjab government relieved BPS-20 police officer Nasir Mahmood Satti and two BPS-18 police officers, Arsalan Shahzeb and Naseebullah Khan, of their duties, with the directions to report to the ED Islamabad. Within hours later, the Division placed their services at the disposal of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for their further postings there.
Similarly, the IGP Punjab reshuffled 57 more police officers during the last 24 hours, replacing the chief traffic officers of two major cities.
From amongst these changes, significant was the appointment of a BPS-18 officer, Mohammad Aamir Khan, as Rawalpindi Operations SSP as, earlier, the IGP had posted BPS-19 Faisal Mukhtar against the abovementioned slot of the Rawalpindi city. However, he cancelled the appointment order of Mr Faisal when it transpired that his colleague, Syed Khalid Mahmood Samdani, was posted against the senior position of City Police Officer despite being junior to him (Faisal) in the inter-batch seniority.
Other than these, the transfer and postings of over 50 more police officers within 24 hours across Punjab showed the government was not bothered about the reservations of the police circles regarding ‘unnecessary changes’ on the pretext of the general elections.
Of them, the IGP reshuffled 23 SPs and 34 DSPs across the province besides three others repatriated from Punjab.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1738235/sword-of-damocles-hangs-over-police-officers-senior-to-igp
