March 01, 2007	Thursday	Safar 11, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

LAHORE, Feb 28: Senior police officers in Punjab have reportedly asked the IG to request the chief minister to have the Police Order 2002 amended so that the police chief could retain the control of five cities recently declared independent police units.

Official sources said on Wednesday that the request was made during a meeting presided over by Provincial Police Officer Ahmad Naseem here last week.

A committee under additional IG Dr Azhar Hasan Nadeem was also constituted to suggest as to how the PPO office could retain control over the five big cities. Its other mandate was to suggest police chain of command all over the province that could conform to the Police Order without disturbing working of the department, the sources said.

They claimed the meeting was held to seek opinion of senior officials on the situation which developed after the declaration of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Multan as independent police units.

“The realisation is that after the declaration, the five cities have slipped out of the hands of the police department, and gone under the command of the provincial government as against the spirit of the Police Order 2002 whose premise was to free the department from the clutches of administration and politicians,” the sources claimed.

They said the police officers opined that the IGP could control the independent city districts (Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala and Faisalabad) if they were given under the control of the regional police officers who have also replaced the DIGs (Ranges) according to a recent notification.

Under the existing policy, the regions having over 10,000 police strength will have additional IGs as their regional police officers. The rest will have DIG rank officers as their heads.

But, the sources said, it was suggested to appoint additional IGs as chiefs of all regions to effectively control the independent city districts where only DIGs should be posted as city police officers (CPOs) to maintain the chain of command.

They said the police officers also asked the IG to have it clarified from the chief minister whether the capital city of Lahore will now have DIGs operations and investigations under the CCPO, necessarily a BS-21 officer of the rank of additional IG, or not.

The demand came in view of the recent downgrading of DIG (Operations) Aftab Cheema to SSP (Operations) and the transfer of SSP (Investigations) Chaudhry Shafqat.

“The post of DIG (operations) still exists in Lahore but it is lying vacant. Similarly, the post of SSP (Investigations) too has not been abolished. And the officers wanted to know the government intentions about the administrative set up of Lahore police,” the sources said.

They said the police department wanted to give a DIG to Lahore if the posts of DIGs (Operations and investigations) were abolished to liaise SSPs of both the wings and the CCPO.

The DIGs (CPOs) of the remaining four cities could have SSPs (Investigations and Operations) whereas the investigation wings in small districts could be given under the command of the DPOs, the sources said.