|
|
|
| December 19, 2002 | Thursday | Shawwal 14, 1423 |
FBI informed govt about police shopping in Dara
GUJRAT, Dec 18: It was the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that in September informed on some men who were purchasing illegal weapons in Dara Adamkhel and smuggling those arms to various parts of the Punjab, according to well-placed sources.
The sources told Dawn on condition of anonymity that acting on FBI’s tip-off, Nowshera’s Akora Khattak police succeeded in arresting four policemen of Gujrat B-Division station on Sept 21, who were travelling in a Hiace (LXK-9640) with 166 pistols, eight Kalashnikovs, three 12-bore rifles, 1,800 cartridges and one kilogram of charas in their possession. The accused police officials were identified as SI Mohammad Khan, ASI Afzal and constables Ihsanullah and Shahbaz.
The Nowshera police brought the matter to the notice of NWFP government, who in turn informed the Punjab government. On Sept 23, Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool, taking serious note of the incident, made Gujrat SSP Nisar Siroya an OSD and suspended Gujrat city DSP Qazi Khalid Lateef, B-Division SHO Chaudhry Iqbal and the four policemen arrested in Nowshera. He also ordered a high-level inquiry against SSP Nisar Siroya on charges of gross negligence and incompetence.
The then provincial police chief also ordered a departmental inquiry into the matter and deputed SP (investigation) Malik Liaqat as the inquiry officer.
It may be recalled that in August, the then Punjab IGP Malik Asif Hayat had ordered a province-wide arms recovery drive, which concluded on Sept 15, 2002. The AIG for operations had fixed marks for every weapon seized during the drive. A police station was to be allotted 10 marks for seizing a hand-grenade, five for a Kalashnikov and two for a pistol. It was decided that after completion of the drive, an awards ceremony would be held for those showing good results and the DPO clinching top slot would be given a cash award of Rs300,000.
Under the supervision of the then DPO Nisar Siroya, Gujrat police tried their best to show efficiency and registered more than 5,000 cases of illegal arms possession.
However, the authenticity of illegal arms possession cases registered by the Punjab police became questionable when it was found out during a departmental probe that Gujrat B-Division police had implicated innocent people in fabricated cases. The inquiry officer observed in his report that B-Division police had indeed framed innocent people in fabricated cases and four of them were carrying arms from Dara Adamkhel to Gujrat, where these would have been shown as recovered arms.
To check the authenticity of the cases registered in other police stations of the province, the then IGP Malik Asif Hayat ordered another probe into police affairs in Gujrat, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Vehari districts. SSP Mubashar from the Police Training School in Chuhng, SSP Dr Arif Mushtaq from the Old Anarkali crime branch, SSP Tasadaq Chaudhry from the Central Police Office and Maj Khalid from the Elite Police Training School in Lahore were directed to determine the reliability of the illegal arms recovery drive in Gujrat, Sialkot, Faisalabad and Vehari, respectively.
“The inquiry officers completed the probe, but on the day they were to submit their findings to the IGP Malik Asif Hayat, the latter was transferred by the provincial government and replaced by Masood Shah,” sources said. The new IGP had not issued any direction with regard to submission of the inquiry reports till the filling of this report.
Replying to a question, the sources confirmed that the inquiry officers had detected gross irregularities in the arms recovery drive of Gujrat, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Vehari police. The inquiry officers were said to have observed in their reports that the police had framed innocent people in false cases and shown bogus recovery of illegal arms. They answered in the affirmative when asked if other police stations of these districts had also purchased weapons from Dara Adamkhel like the Gujrat B-Division police.
About the inquiry against SSP Siroya, the sources said that if the charges against him were proven, Mr Siroya would be suspended and his services placed at the disposal of the federal government with the request not to employ him in the Punjab in future.
|
|
|
|
