LAHORE: The Police Training College (PTC) Lahore commandant has asked the Punjab audit director general to conduct an external audit of the college after an internal audit of the PTC’s accounts detected large-scale alleged financial irregularities during the period between June 2025 and February 2026.

It was said to be the first massive alleged mismanagement of government funds in the PTC highlighted in the recent history of the college, a challenging task for Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz who had announced a policy of zero tolerance against corruption and also affirmed multiple times that she would hold accountable the officers of any rank in the police if found guilty.

In a recent letter, PTC Commander Capt retd Sohail Chaudhry requested the Punjab audit DG to expand the scope of investigations of the last four financial years starting from 2021-2022.

“It is submitted that the external audit of the Police Training College Lahore for the financial years as mentioned above may be scheduled at the earliest,” reads the letter addressed to the audit DG.

Newly-posted PTC commandant had earlier asked IGP for an internal audit with the auditors finding several alleged irregularities

The request was submitted by the newly-posted commandant some weeks after a team headed by Raja Faisal, the Punjab Highways Patrol (PHP) DIG, carried out an internal audit of the accounts of the college and pointed out alleged financial irregularities of an estimated amount of Rs400 million.

The team was constituted by Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Abdul Kareem on the recommendations of PTC Commandant DIG Sohail Chaudhry.

In the earlier letter on March 17, 2026, Mr Chaudhry had requested the IGP to carry out an internal audit and inspection of the PTC Lahore, copies of both letters are available with Dawn.

Mr Chaudhry was transferred from the post of Multan RPO and appointed as the new PTC Lahore commandant on February 24.

A senior official privy to the development said that the newly-posted commandant held initial meetings with relevant officials wherein the matter of alleged dubious financial activities under various accounts was highlighted. He claimed that the poor quality material used in the construction of a shed for the under-training Punjab police personnel and some other doubtful financial transactions also came under discussion. Declaring it a grave situation, he said that Mr Chaudhry decided to take the Punjab IGP into confidence to get the possible irregularities investigated by a team of senior police officers.

On 17 March, he wrote a letter to the IGP and requested him to carry out an internal audit and inspection of the college’s accounts. “It is requested that an internal audit team may kindly be deputed to this office to conduct an internal audit & inspection of accounts, ensuring transparency and to avoid financial constraints in 2026/2027,” reads the official letter.

The official claimed that the audit team constituted by the IGP, under the supervision of DIG Faisal Ali Raja, visited the college and launched inspections, seeking relevant financial documents. The visiting team questioned many officials and obtained their respective statements, he said, adding that during the scrutiny of documents, the audit officials allegedly detected a dubious cash withdrawal of over R67 million from the accounts of the College a few days before the posting of the new commandant. Similarly, another such alleged transaction of over Rs86 million made some seven months back was pointed out, the official claimed.

The official further said the alleged financial anomalies pertaining to the funds provided by the Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (Pera) and the customs department for the training of officials of both entities were also highlighted. He claimed the internal audit team also raised doubts over a single vendor providing services for the last two or so years.

When contacted, IGP Abdul Kareem confirmed to Dawn about the internal audit of the PTC Lahore. However, he said that the audit of the accounts of the PTC was underway and he would not comment amid ‘speculations’ till the process had been completed.

To a question about why during the internal audit the PTC commandant wrote another letter to audit DG for an external audit, the IGP said, “I am unable to recall such correspondence and I will be in a better position to answer any query after consulting relevant documents”.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2026