LAHORE: The entire chain of command of the Kasur police including District Police Officer Abdul Ghaffar Qaisrani and the SP Investigation has been placed under suspension after the recovery of bodies of three children.

IGP Arif Nawaz took action against them on the directions of Prime Minister Imran Khan who had expressed his serious concern over Chunian’s scandal and declared them responsible for the delayed action.

Read: PM Imran vows 'accountability for all' over Kasur deaths

In his tweet, Prime Minister Imran Khan said, “There will be accountability for all. Those who don’t perform in the interest of the common man will be taken to task.” He further said the IGP was removing the Kasur DPO, SP Investigation, DSP and SHO concerned.

The prime minister said a major overhaul in the Kasur police was on the cards and probe had also been ordered.

Senior police officer Zahid Nawaz Marwat would replace Abdul Ghaffar Qaisrani and the order to the effect would be notified soon.

Surprisingly, the decision came after the Punjab government formed a five-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) and appointed Mr Qaisrani as its head to conduct investigation into murder of the children. The new head of the JIT will be announced shortly while other members are Kasur’s SP Investigation Shahbaz Elahi and representatives from the Intelligence Bureau and the Counter Terrorism Department, Punjab. Former SP Investigation Qadus Baig was also made member of the JIT keeping in view his previous experience in the case of little Zainab.

The IGP also suspended the Chunian Circle sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) and the SHO on the recommendation of another committee constituted to fix responsibility on the police officers for not taking timely action in the recovery of the missing or kidnapped children. Action was taken against them on the report of the committee headed by additional IG internal accountability branch Azhar Hameed Khokhar.

The committee was given assignment to find out lapses and negligence of the police officers concerned in delay of tracing the children who were found murdered two days back.

Additional IG Operations Inam Ghani confirmed to Dawn that the entire senior leadership of the Kasur police had been removed from the positions. He said the DPO and other police officers faced action for not taking timely action to trace and recover the missing/kidnapped children.

He said the IGP had also formed two more teams and sent them to Kasur to complete their assignments. One team comprises analysts and IT experts who will carry out geo-fencing of the areas where bodies of the children were found and use technology-based expertise to trace the cases while the other team comprises forensic experts who have been given task of ensuring the DNA tests of children, their parents and suspects.

“The Kasur police have taken into custody 10 suspects and the forensic teams have taken their samples for DNA tests besides those of four children and their parents,” Mr Ghani said. He said that according to the preliminary investigations, the autopsy report of Faizan confirmed that he was raped before murder and that his neck was also broken.

The forensic team had sent the DNA samples of his bones recovered from the bushes for analysis, he said.

Answering a question, he said, the CCTV cameras of the Safe City Authority were not available in the “backward area” of Chunian.

He also deplored that the role of the parents, neighbours and the community was not much encouraging as far as keeping an eye on children’s interaction with strangers was concerned.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2019