ISLAMABAD: Six police station house officers (SHOs) in the capital were removed on Thursday for their poor performance and misconduct.

Talking to Dawn, senior police officers said four of the SHOs were suspended over misconduct and bad reputation and two removed for poor performance and failure to control crime.

Those who suspended were the SHOs of Sihala, Khanna, Koral and Karachi Company. There were a number of complaints against the SHOs about misconduct and misuse of power and alleged connivance with criminals.

One of the SHOs was allegedly involved in assisting land grabbers and avoided registering a land grabbing case in which a citizen was shot and injured. The issue later came into the knowledge of senior officers who ordered registration of the case.

Another SHO was allegedly involved in settling a dispute in favour of the accused by pressuring and threatening the complainants/victims. There was a massive increase in crime in the area of another SHO. Before the occurrence of a crime, including auto-theft and snatching incident, the police team was removed from that area, it was alleged.

The four officials were batch-mates and used to serve at the same police station before they were appointed as SHOs, the officers said.

The capital police are facing shortage of manpower for appointment of inspector rank officers as SHO. The police have 53 officers in the inspector rank and majority of them have bad reputation, they added.

The remaining inspectors are also not suitable for the post of the SHO, the officers said. As a result, sub-inspectors are appointed as in-charges of the police stations.

The officers said the decision to remove the in-charge of a zone - a superintendent - was also taken due to his poor performance. However, the order was later withdrawn.

SHOs of Aabpara and Secretariat were removed from their posts and transferred to Rescue-15 due to poor performance.

When contacted, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Afzal Ahmed Kausar confirmed that the SHOs of Sihala, Koral, Khanna and Karachi Company had been suspended due to misconduct and poor performance and there were complaints against them.

There was an increase of crime in their areas. Besides, they also failed to trace and arrest criminals, including murder and robbery, he added. He said the senior superintendent of police (SSP) had been asked to appoint officials with good repute as SHOs and remove the bad ones.

IGP Qazi Jameelur Rehman was approached for his comments over the withdrawal of the SP’s removal order but he neither denied nor confirmed it.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2021