KARACHI: Two senior police officers — DIG Khadim Rind and SSP Dr Rizwan Ahmed — whose services have been surrendered to the federal government recently by the Sindh government have approached the Provincial Public Safety and Police Comp­laints Commission against what they called their abrupt transfers, it emerged on Sunday.

The officers informed the commission through their separate letters that their services were ‘abruptly’ surrendered from Sindh province to the Establishment Division “without any complaint or inquiry”.

They contended that such transfers might trigger insecurity among police officers and demoralise them.

Dr Rizwan in his letter pointed out that he assumed the charge of SSP-Shikarpur on Sept 24.

He stated that soon after joining the office, he faced “serious problems from influentials of Shikarpur who are patronising dacoits, criminals and corrupt police officers and wanted to use police for their own personal and political motives”.

He further stated that he took all kinds of steps to counter such issues and launched an intelligence-based operation against criminals. Because of such an action, the influence of feudal and politicians was reduced from the police department, he added.

The Sindh govt has sent packing ex-Shikarpur SSP Rizwan in less than three months

As a result, he was “surprisingly surrendered from province of Sindh without any prior notice, complaint or inquiry”, he said, adding that even the office of the inspector general of police (IGP) was neither informed nor taken into confidence before surrendering his service to the federal government.

The SSP said in the letter that he was nominated as a member of the joint investigation team as well as the investigating officer (IO) in the Naqeeb Ullah Mehsud murder case, which is pending before an antiterrorism court, where he is representing the state.

The senior officer urged the commission to “inquire into [his] sudden and abrupt transfer”. The officer said such kind of transfer posed “serious concerns and insecurity among officers of the police service, who would otherwise feel insecure in taking strong decision”.

Dr Rizwan stated that he had also prepared a presentation on challenges being faced by the Shikarpur police and it could be presented before the commission.

Separately, DIG Khadim Rind, who was a former DIG-Establishment in the Sindh police, sent a letter to the commission stating that his services were surrendered to the Establishment Division on Nov 5 without mention of “any reason or fault on my part”.

He stated that he was working on “special assignments” of promotions, devising a new policy and rules and other important tasks when he received the order.

The IGP-Sindh had written a letter to the chief secretary stating that DIG Rind’s services were required by the Sindh police because of the ongoing special tasks assigned to him in the capacity of the DIG-Establishment. However, the surrender letter was not withdrawn, he added.

On the contrary, the Sindh government wrote a letter to the Establishment Division asking it for taking action against the DIG for not complying with the transfer orders.

DIG Rind in his letter to the commission revealed that more than a year ago, the Establishment Division had asked the Sindh police to suggest names of those PSP officers who had been posted for long in the province.

The officer said that his name was also mentioned in the list of officers under the Establishment Division’s rotation policy.

However, his name was later dropped on account of being a junior officer and there were many other officers who had remained in Sindh for a longer period. Thus the issue was not taken up again by the relevant forum ‘due to merits of the case’. Therefore, he continued serving in the Sindh police but the sudden surrender order had demoralised him.

The DIG urged the commission to ask the chief secretary to approach the Establishment Division for cancellation of his surrender letter “in the interest of justice and fair play”.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2019