Police officers were tasked to 'break PPP people' by Sindh caretaker govt, claims CM Shah

Published November 14, 2018
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah addresses the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday. — DawnNewsTV
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah addresses the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday. — DawnNewsTV

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday lashed out at what he called arbitrary transfers of police officers by the Sindh caretaker government before the 2018 elections, saying the random postings had left the policemen clueless.

"[They] put the names of all officers in a box, started revolving it and then pulled out name chits to mindlessly decide where each police officer would be posted," Shah said while briefing the Sindh Assembly about the law and order situation.

He alleged that the police officers had been assigned the task of "breaking the PPP people", and because they were allegedly too busy trying to change PPP leaders' alliances, the law and order situation had worsened and street crime in Karachi had risen.

"I am a witness [to this] myself... they were asked to 'break the PPP people', [and] forget about the law and order."

After returning into power, the chief minister said, the PPP government has been trying to control the street crimes situation.

Shah informed the house that 61 incidents of terrorism had taken place in Sindh in 2013. The number came down to two such incidents in 2017, while this year no terrorist incident has taken place in Sindh so far.

Incidents of targeted killings and street crimes have also dropped, he said, adding in the same breath: "But we are not satisfied... we have to do more work."

He said the province of Sindh, specifically Karachi, have seen several devastating terrorist incidents in recent years, including the Safoora Goth carnage, the Sehwan bomb blast, the Shikapur blast and the killings of qawwal Amjad Sabri, JUI-F leader Khalid Mehmood Soomro and journalist Wali Babar.

"There is not a single incident which we have not traced or solved," Shah claimed, before questioning the investigations into terrorist attacks in other provinces.

"Did [we] ever find out what happened at the Army Public School in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? Have the men who escaped in a jailbreak in KP been found till date?" he asked.

Responding to a point raised by another lawmaker, he said it was members of the civil society which had moved courts against the Sindh government's efforts to replace then provincial chief of police A.D. Khowaja, and not Khowaja himself.

"We tried a lot [to replace him] but what can I say... [unlike Sindh,] nothing happens when the Punjab police IG is changed within three weeks," Shah said, before adding tongue-in-cheek: "Be grateful the civil society there [Punjab] is not that active."

"The Islamabad IG [was] also transferred in an incident involving cows," he said, in a reference to a federal minister's alleged role in the transfer of former Islamabad police chief Jan Mohammad. However, he observed that a joint investigation team had been formed to probe that alleged abuse of power.

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