LAHORE, Nov 13: The allotment of IG’s designated colonial residence in GOR-I to a provincial minister, is hurting the ‘pride’ of police who are taking it as a symbolic first attack on the independence they have been enjoying under the Police Order 2002.

And with it the police flag has been lowered for the first time in the history of the IG’s residence.

The designated IG’s House was allotted to PPP Minister Ashraf Sohna after it was vacated by former provincial police chief Saadatullah Khan some times ago despite protests by police high-ups.

This forced the incumbent IG, Shaukat Javaid, to settle in an ‘ordinary’ residence in Qurban Lines. And on his reported protest over the loss of the designated house, he was given a camp office in one of the IG’s House corners to allow him to sit in the GOR-I if he was to operate during odd hours.

The situation is still the same despite the IG’s best efforts to regain his official residence, and the minister’s willingness to vacate it provided he is given some alternate place to reside.

S&GAD’s personnel concerned say the minister has already been allocated another residence where he will soon shift after its renovation.

“We are handing over the IG’s House to Mr Shaukat Javaid,” they claim.

But senior police officials, who are taking the allotment of their chief’s residence to a minister a deliberate attempt by the Punjab bureaucracy to hurt their pride, are not ready to accept the S&GAD version.

The designated house is in fact a symbol of police pride which has deliberately been hurt to remind them they are subordinate to the bureaucracy, they say.

“Allotment of IG’s house to someone else is humiliation of the office. And giving him an office at the same occupied place is like adding insult to injury,” a senior police official said.

The police official said his colleagues were also considering the allotment of the house to Mr Sohna a deliberate attempt to create a wedge between their department and the PPP.

“The IG’s House has a history of its own. It has antique weapons and other valuable record whose pilferage could not be ruled out,” the official said.