KARACHI: Former CM, ministers still keep police guards
By S. Raza Hassan
KARACHI, Nov 27: The former chief minister of Sindh and three former provincial ministers are still enjoying the services of police escorts in spite of the fact that after the dissolution of the provincial assembly they are no longer entitled to such privileges, it has been learnt.
Sources pointed out that Arbab Ghulam Rahim, former chief minister of Sindh, is still being assisted by one of his former personal staff officers.
SP Aijaz Shaikh, who was promoted by Mr Rahim to his current rank from DSP, is still associated with the former CM, whereas the other personal staff officer, SP Ali Raza, is performing his duties with the caretaker chief minister.
Former adviser to the chief minister on home affairs Waseem Akhtar, former minister for industries and labour Adil Siddiqui and former minister for culture and tourism Rauf Siddiqui are still enjoying the protection of police escorts.
Sources said that these escorts are not limited to just one police mobile and the associated number of police personnel, but at least two police mobiles at the minimum. It is common knowledge that the aforementioned provincial ministers used to enjoy heightened security while they were in office.
Inquires showed that the senior police hierarchy is quite reluctant to withdraw the security detail from the former ministers as well as from the former chief minister of Sindh. However, according to a press release issued today, caretaker Sindh Home Minister Brigadier (retd) Akhtar Zamin, while calling upon Sindh National Front chief Mumtaz Bhutto at his residence, announced that police guards assigned to escort former provincial ministers would be withdrawn.
The police department has faced a shortage of manpower and police mobiles. In July this year, the police hierarchy announced the withdrawal of escorts from different personalities including politicians, religious leaders, retired and senior police officials.
An exercise was carried out to withdraw the police personnel, but, as expected, the campaign did not yield the desired results, though escorts were withdrawn from senior police officers, the police added.
Skewed priorities
Out of the sanctioned strength of 29,000 police personnel for Karachi, at least 4,000 police officers are doing escort duties along with a sizeable fleet of police mobiles. The government’s priorities are obvious from the fact that for chasing criminals, an average police station in the city has a badly run-down mobile capable only of running at a snail’s pace.
Sources in the police department said that there are at least 72 permanent escorts which have been assigned to judges, politicians, religious leaders, etc.
The second category is of temporary escorts, the number of which varies from time to time, as they are assigned to visiting politicians, including federal ministers and foreign dignitaries. On an average 30 temporary escorts remain engaged in the city, sources said. At least over 100 superb condition police mobiles are engaged in escort duties at any given day in the city.
“Particularly, the police guards attached to religious leaders for their protection adopt to the lifestyle of the cleric they are supposed to protect so much so that it becomes impossible to distinguish between them (police guards) and an armed religious fanatic,” a senior police official remarked.
A senior police officer said that prolonged guard duties of the policemen drastically alter their loyalty and professional skills. A person who engages these police guards takes care of them by providing them a meal a day and also pays them a certain amount. All these fringe benefits come with a monthly salary of Rs10,000 coming from the police department.
“The moment these police guards – for one reason or the other – report back to headquarters, they try to go back to escort duty because they don’t feel comfortable anymore with the field duties of the police department”, a senior police official remarked.
Often these police personnel end up doing cooking; they bring sahib’s children from school and carry out other similar domestic work. Understandably, they often reach late for work due to traffic jams or transport problems. At this point police motorcycles – originally meant for police patrolling – come into play.
Keeping a police escort has more to do with maintaining a status symbol rather than security concerns, observed a senior police official. A former provincial minister who enjoyed considerable clout was in possession of 55 police guards when he was in office, confided a senior police official.
