LAHORE: A tussle between the Regional Police Officer (RPO) of Rawalpindi and the City Police Officer (CPO) of the district has reached the office of the Inspector General of Police when the RPO reinstated police inspectors a few days after the later dismissed them on serious corruption charges.

The IGP ordered the Additional Inspector General of Police (Establishment) to hold an inquiry into the matter after decision of RPO Ehsan Tufail sparked a controversy since the laid-down rules were reportedly set aside while reinstating some of the dismissed police officials.

An official privy to the information told Dawn that more than 2400 appeals of several subordinate policemen of the Rawalpindi range were pending with the RPO office, including those filed in 2016. However, the RPO entertained the appeals of police inspectors dismissed recently by Rawalpindi CPO Faisal Rana.

Pindi RPO gives instant relief to inspectors fired by CPO

He said the laid-down reinstatement procedure was no less than a ‘judicial process’ which required many months to fix the appeals, seeking comments from the punishing authority, give patient hearing to the dismissed officials before taking the ultimate decision.

The official said Mr Faisal had dismissed eight police inspectors, including SHOs and a sub-inspector of the Rawalpindi district police, under the Punjab Police Efficiency & Discipline Rules 1975.

Before taking action, he had issued them show-cause notices on June 22 followed by departmental inquiries.

“As the inquiry officers after due deliberations and probe recommended strict disciplinary action, the CPO dismissed eight police inspectors and a sub-inspector”, the official said.

He said the dismissed police officials approached the RPO who heard and reinstated inspectors Abdul Rasheed and Sajid Hussain and sub-inspector Shafqat Ali within a few days.

The matter led to differences between the two top police officers of the region as the appellant authority didn’t seek comments from the punishing authority, which is a mandatory requirement under the police rules before taking a final decision.

RPO Ahsaan Taufail refused to comment on the matter when this reporter contacted him.

CPO Faisal Rana said that IGP Capt retired Arif Nawaz had given a new policy to all the field police officers of the province to strengthen internal accountability mechanism in order to root out the menace of corruption from the police department.

For the purpose, he had given guidelines to his subordinates to follow directions in letter and spirit. He said the action had been taken against the policemen after conducting detailed departmental inquiries and in the light of concrete evidence.

Punjab IGP Arif Nawaz told Dawn according to the RPO the dismissed police officials were reinstated because no regular departmental inquiry was carried out against them. Secondly, they were reinstated provisionally and no further posting was given to them by the RPO. Rather, they were restricted to the reserve police lines.

The IGP further said that the RPO had deputed some DPOs to hold investigations against the policemen in question.

“Further action will be taken once the regular inquiry report is finalised”, he said.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2019