HARIPUR: Half of the employees of the police’s telecommunication wing are understood to be denied promotion over ineligibility for the relevant courses.

Official sources told Dawn that the telecommunication wing had 273 employees, including wireless operators, radio mechanics and motor mechanics, in all districts of the province but half of them hadn’t been promoted beyond the post of head constable despite more than two decades service.

A wireless operator of the wing posted to Hazara division said he had got just promotion to the head constable’s post after serving the wing for over 25 years.

He said several of his colleagues at the Hangu police training school from the preventive and investigation wings of the force were promoted even up to the positions of of inspector and deputy superintendent.

Another policeman from the cadre said he and many others were hired as constables and were trained at the Hangu police school with other recruits, who were later posted to the preventive and investigation wings.

He regretted that the structure of promotion set for other wings didn’t apply to the telecommunication wing.

Sources said in 2018, the police department had allowed ‘condonation’ of age to some overage head constables and ASIs for next course but over 150 head constables posted in different districts were not recommended for advanced course required for promotion.

They said after repeated requests, the case of 148 head constables from the telecom wing was sent to the inspector general of police but that was not approved due to age restrictions mentioned by the KP Police Act, 2017.

The sources said the head constables denied the right to promotion again approached the DIG with a request for handling their case as a special one, but to no avail.

A source in the office of the DIG Hazara claimed that the matter was under consideration at the provincial level.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2020