KARACHI: A committee comprising top five police officers was constituted on Tuesday to review ‘performance and eligibility’ of over 100 station house officers posted across the city and interview officers seeking the position.

It was decided in a meeting chaired by Sindh police chief Ghulam Hyder Jamali that SHOs would be posted purely on the basis of performance and eligibility, subject to the approval by the five-member board.

The move came after the last week visit of the army chief to Karachi during which he shared his thoughts that the law-enforcement agency should be ‘empowered as an apolitical force’.

Know more: Army will go to any extent for Karachi peace: COAS

“Additional IG Karachi Ghulam Qadir Thebo shall act as chairman of the board, whereas DIG west zone, DIG south, DIG east and DIG administration would be its members,” said a police statement issued after the meeting.

It added that input from the special branch of police would also be duly considered by the board while deciding cases.

While reviewing performance of SHOs in detail, the Sindh police chief directed Karachi police chief Thebo to “immediately remove the SHOs in whose jurisdiction narcotics dens are operating besides other social evils”.

IG Jamali also directed the DIG special branch to start verifying antecedents of all the SHOs and submit its report at the earliest so that the incompetent and corrupt elements could be taken to task, added the statement.

The five-member board, sources said, would be effective immediately and likely to hold its first meeting within the next few days that would look into credentials and the detailed report filed by the special branch about every individual officer.

While the Sindh IG called the move as part of ‘reforms in the existing policing system’ to bring competent officers forward, some police officials believed that among other reasons it was also the urge of the army chief to depoliticise the police force.

“There was a proposal for a long to set up a body like that [board],” said a source privy to the discussion at the meeting. “But obviously General Raheel Sharif’s thought is the key reason to expedite the process and there is a strong feeling among the authorities to move on those lines before it’s too late.”

While co-chairing the Sindh apex committee meeting last week with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the national action plan, the army chief had praised Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, for the ongoing targeted operation and said the army would take whatever action was needed to restore a sustainable peace to Karachi.

At the same time, he also said that the police needed to be empowered as apolitical and effective force while postings in the key law-enforcement agency should be made without any interference through the province’s apex committee that had also the Karachi corps commander as its member. The mandate, given to the five-member board by the Sindh IG, suggests that the recent development is on the same lines.

“There would be two types of check which may lead to suspension of any officer from that key [SHO] post,” DIG south Barrister Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, one of the board members, told Dawn. Firstly, he said the officers marked in reports for their dishonesty, corruption or high-handedness will face the music and secondly, action will be taken against the officers identified as partial or associated with any political or criminal group.

For some 108 police stations across the city, the board would interview officers who came forward on their own to show their willingness for offices of SHOs and those who were recommended by their respective SPs and SSPs, he said.

“The idea is to create a pool of 200 to 250 officers, who are rotated and posted as SHO when and wherever needed,” said Barrister Sheikh. “Similarly, there would also be consideration of interpersonal and communal skills of the individuals to post them in vulnerable areas such as pockets in Lyari and police stations in district west of Karachi.”

Published in Dawn February 25th , 2015

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