LAHORE, Dec 15: Around 25 officers of Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) ranking from assistant superintendents to senior superintendents met at Qilla Gujjar Singh police lines on Sunday to share their concern at the Punjab government’s move to hand over administrative control of three subordinate departments of Punjab police to the home department.

The meeting which lasted for six hours decided that the officers would jointly lodge protest with their seniors including the provincial police chief (IG) at the Central Police Office on December 18.

Insiders confided to Dawn that the participants showed serious reservations over the PML-N-led government’s move to transfer to the home department the administrative powers of the IGP to run affairs of counter-terrorism department, special branch and elite force.

They said the officers were of the view that they could better handle these three wings as witnessed in other countries. They held that only police officials were capable of understanding and dealing with terrorism and formulating a policy to fight it.

The sources further said police officers also decided to avoid field postings across the province and run a campaign among their colleagues in the field to surrender such assignments. They decided to consider options of joining UN missions, scholarships and transfer to other provinces if police authorities didn’t resist the government’s move.

According to a police officer, police are already working under the command of chief secretary, but it is embarrassing for the provincial police officer to loose his powers as ex-officio secretary given under Police Order 2002 and let the home secretary control three police wings.

He recalls that the PML-Q government in Punjab had to withdraw a summary aiming to appoint 200 serving army captains on deputation as supervisory police officers across the province following the protest and resignation threat by PSP officers who feared loosing postings against sanctioned posts.