LAHORE: The Punjab police chief has initiated a fresh series of region-wise meetings with all field officers to look into ‘unsatisfactory’ police performance to arrest of those wanted in sectarian cases and identify the elements associated with recent target killings in the province.

In a couple of meetings held in the last two days, all district field formations had been directed to prepare fresh lists of people falling in all sectarian categories in an attempt to detain them for interrogation to get lead to real culprits, belonging to both Sunni and Shia sects.

A source privy to the development told Dawn on Tuesday that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a meeting few days ago took notice of police inefficiency in tracking down the elements involved in sectarian attacks and killings and directed massive crackdown on such elements with the help of other law-enforcement agencies.

He said the rising incidents of sectarian clashes and target killings in Punjab, following Rawalpindi sectarian killings in November 2013 and non-arrest of the accused, had eventually forced the chief minister to intervene and ‘reprimand’ the provincial police chief.

The IGP held emergency meetings with regional police officers (RPOs) and district police officers (DPOs) of Gujranwala and Sheikhupura regions on Monday last and with RPOs and DPOs of Faisalabad and Sahiwal on Tuesday.

The IGP ‘rejected’ progress on Nov 11, 2013 lists which were already prepared by district police for recent meetings and issued orders for new lists. The meetings with remaining regions would take place in days to come, the source added.

Keeping in view the sensitivity of the situation, the IGP had to call an emergency meeting also with all the RPOs and CCPO Lahore at his Camp Office on Monday evening to chalk out future course of action.

The meeting, which was also attended by the Additional IG Counter-Terrorism Department and the Additional IG Special Branch, decided that all the DPOs would make fresh lists by holding district coordination meetings with officials of the ISI, IB, CTD and SB, detain the suspects linked with sectarianism for interrogation in order to get lead to identify and arrest target killers.

The source said law-enforcement agencies would be able to detain such people and interrogate them under the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance 2013. It further said the senior officers were directed to identify potential targets involved in sectarianism, act indiscriminately against loudspeaker violations, hate speeches and material and arrest trouble creators.