KARACHI: The Sindh Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission passed a resolution against Inspector General of Police Dr Kaleem Imam for failing to attend a second consecutive meeting of the statutory body chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Friday.

The resolution against IGP Imam was passed as he chose to attend an emergency meeting convened by the prime minister in Islamabad instead of participating in the commission’s meeting held at the CM House.

According to the agenda of the meeting, the IGP was supposed to submit a comprehensive report on action taken against drug mafia, manufacturers/smugglers of gutka, mainpuri, narcotics, arrests made and cases filed in courts.

The other items of the agenda included review of detailed reports submitted by the IGP regarding the students’ issue in Shaheed Benazirabad University; Mehrabpur incident of beating of a child and Pir Jo Goth incident of suicide of a boy.

Other items on the agenda included provincial annual policing plan, office space for the commission, progress on establishment of the district public safety and police complaints commission, district selection panel and rules of procedure of the commission.

Murad expresses displeasure over 14 polio cases in Sindh

It was the third meeting of the commission and the IGP was also absent in the previous meeting.

At the outset, participants of the meeting came to know that the IGP had flown to Islamabad to attend a meeting. The chief minister said that the IGP had informed him about an emergency meeting convened by the prime minister so he had been called there.

However, one of the members of the commission disclosed that it was not an emergency meeting as it was scheduled before the current month.

The commission members observed that it was the second consecutive meeting which the IGP had “avoided”. They felt that the police chief was not ready to attend a meeting of the body.

Karamat Ali, a senior member of the commission, in consultation with other members presented a resolution to express their displeasure against the absence of the IGP from the meeting.

The resolution further said that the IGP preferred to attend a “political” meeting in Islamabad and avoided the meeting of a statutory body in Sindh.

The commission unanimously passed the resolution against the IGP.

Later, the commission called Karachi police chief Additional IG Ghulam Nabi Memon, Addl IG Yaqoob Minhas and DIG Khaliq Shaikh in the meeting and Mr Ali informed them about the resolution passed against the IGP.

Mr Ali told the city police chief that the commission was postponing the agenda relating to the IGP and was taking up only administrative items.

The commission members also expressed surprise that the federal government was inviting the IGP and other top officers serving in Sindh without informing the chief minister. In principle, they should be called in meetings through the chief executive of the province, they added.

The commission discussed the office space for the commission and other items.

The commission was told that a few offices had been identified and now the members had to visit the places to select a location.

As far as rules of procedure of the commission were concerned, Advocate Jhamat Mal told the meeting that he framed the rules and further input of the members was required. Therefore, the commission members were asked to submit their input.

The secretary of the commission, Saifullah Abro, informed the members that he requested the district administration to recommend names for district public safety and police complaint commission so that it could be established.

The commission members decided to convene the fourth meeting of the body within next 10 days in which police complaints would be discussed.

The meeting was attended by its members Sharjeel Inam Memon, Imdad Ali Pitafi, Mohammad Ali Aziz, Shahnaz Begum, Shamim Mumtaz, Karamat Ali, Advocate Jhamat Mal and Qurban Ali Malano. CM’s Law Adviser Murtaza Wahab attended the meeting on a special invitation.

Murad irked by detection of 14 polio cases in Sindh

The chief minister also presided over a meeting of the provincial task force for polio eradication at CM House.

He expressed his displeasure and anguish over detection of 14 polio cases in the province during 2019.

He directed the health department to launch a fresh campaign with a new strategy and vigour by involving councillors, members of the provincial assembly and also administer polio drops to every person at transit points such as Jacobabad, the Mochko post and Karachi Toll Plaza.

He also declared Sindh would be polio free in 2020 for which he assigned the task to all departments, divisional, district and municipal administrations.

The meeting was attended by Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho, Local Government Minister Nasir Shah, Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar, Shahnaz Wazir Ali and other senior officials.

The chief minister said that the emergence of 14 cases in the province in 2019 had undone all the efforts the provincial government had taken so far.

“We had 30 cases in 2014 and after that the provincial government with its effective campaign controlled the situation and the cases started declining,” he said, adding that in 2015 there were 14 cases, in 2016 eight cases, in 2017 two cases and in 2018 one case only.

He lamented that in 2019 “we have returned to the worst situation which was somewhere between 2014 and 2015”.

The chief minister said that the cases detected from Karachi were among those children who originally belonged to Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The next anti-polio campaign would start from Dec 16 and continue till Dec 22 in all 29 districts and 1,125 union councils of the province. In the campaign all 9,087,234 children would be administered with the polio vaccine.

Mr Shah said that he would hold a meeting on Dec 23 to review the progress of the eight-day campaign. “I’ll take all the DCs and local bodies’ representatives on video link,” he said and added he would personally monitor the campaign so that Sindh could be made a polio-free province by the end of 2020.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2019