HYDERABAD: A total of 585 police constables recruited in different ranges of Sindh police without due process of appointment in 2013-14, have been dismissed by police hierarchy.

The apex court, after rejecting a report of Traffic police DIG Khadim Bhatti on these irregularities, has formed a three-member committee headed by a seasoned police officer A.D. Khwaja to conduct a detailed probe.

These police constables have been working in different districts. If Hyderabad district’s case is anything to go by, these policemen have been serving police until their sacking for around one and a half year without any salary. Some were part of Rapid Response Force (RRF) raised by SSP Irfan Ali Baloch and got trained by army. The RRF has an effective presence in the city.

Inquiries show that DIG Bhatti’s report gave a break-up of each district, mentioning six categories which do not meet appointment’s criterion laid down by police.

It includes candidates being overage; not having domicile of the given district; names not in merit list; other cadre and not in the list of written test.

The Supreme Court remained dissatisfied with Bhatti’s report because such tinted recruitments were also made in traffic police while he was heading that wing of police.

After the existing inquiry report, explanations were sought from the SSPs concerned following Bhatti’s report. These explanations are submitted and now their personal hearings are due. Now the new inquiry committee would start working to examine these appointments which are largely influenced by parliamentarians, ruling party leaders and many others.

Affected policemen could only approach the Sindh High Court to seek remedy considering the fact that in some cases the court has allowed their induction. The court passed orders for induction of around seven to eight policemen with varying nature of dismissal orders in Hyderabad range lately.

According to a Sindh police officer, “Overage is the ground that can’t be condoned or undone so even if the Khwaja-led committee looks into cases, it will approve these dismissals. The Sindh government has not allowed age relaxation for police constables”. A constable has to be 28 years of age at the time of appointment.

“We have dismissed 585 police constables across Sindh in the backdrop of Khadim Bhatti’s report, but now the new inquiry committee will go into further details of recruitment and to see who is responsible for these recruitments,” said the AIG establishment, Naeem Ahmed Shaikh.

“We now presume in the light of each report of district that they have met the required procedure for dismissal of policemen, but if it is not done, legal requirements will be met,” he said.

He claimed that the apex court had authorised the committee of which he was a member to take action against those candidates who got appointment orders through other means and “even officers who appointed them will face action”.

Initially, 199 policemen were sacked in Jacobabad followed by dismissal of 156 police constables in Hyderabad and then other district police bosses issued orders in line with IGP’s directives despite the fact that by then apex court did not ask him to sack these police constables.

But the IGP, who being first sitting provincial police chief to be embroiled in a contempt of court proceeding, did not waste time in sacking them perhaps to avoid further embarrassment.

“Yes, I have gone through the apex court’s order informally and will start working soon,” said A.D. Khwaja. “These policemen are to be issued show-cause notice if they don’t meet all legal formalities,” he said.

A sitting DIG said that since appeals were to be filed eventually by the dismissed policemen, the DIGs had to now look into the fact whether they had been rightly dismissed by the district police boss concerned or the office staff concerned had shielded some candidates who were to be in fact sacked or someone’s name had been included for grudge or any other reason. “No action is taken so far against any SSP(s) actually responsible as it is SSP who is the appointing authority,” he said.

In Hyderabad district, a police source disclosed that 286 vacancies of police constables were available in 2013-14, but candidates in excess of the vacancies were appointed. These policemen got training required for service and performed duties without salary.

“A DIG from Karachi had personally brought a list of people to be appointed under some alleged ‘quotas’ which include ruling party’s men, police officers and parliamentarians,” he said.

According to him, 217 of them met the criteria and were accordingly appointed while the rest were attributed to so many factors.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2015