ATTOCK, Dec 14: Seventy constables, who recently joined the district police, have been found ineligible for service on the basis of physical standards that should have prevented them even from joining the training programme, it has been learnt.

The latest irregularity surfaced at a time when 69 recruits had already been referred to the District Police Headquarters after their disqualification by the Police Training School (PTS) administrations during the last leg of six-month training.

Sources said after the disqualification of 69 recruits, the Central Police Office (CPO) in Lahore had directed the district police officer to reexamine those police constables who had recently joined the Attock police.

The reexamination showed that height and chest measurements of 70 of the recently-trained constable were below the set standards, they added.

The sources said on the instructions given by the CPO, the Attock police headquarters had initiated an inquiry to probe that under what circumstances such a major violation had been made in the police recruitments.

It is being believed that such type of irregularity could have been done due to political interference.

As per the rules, it is mandatory that every candidate should have minimum height of five feet and seven inches with minimum chest measurement of 33 inches, but the 139 police officials did not met the criteria.

The sources said it was expected that besides the dismissal of the disqualified police constables, strict action would also be taken against the police officials who were responsible for the physical examination of the recruits.

When contacted, District Police Officer (DPO) Attock Fakhar Sultan Raja admitted the detection of 70 more ineligible police constables.

“An inquiry is underway in this regard and further action will be taken after its completion,” he said.

It is worth mentioning that two batches of more than 1,300 police recruits had been sent to the PTS Rawat, Rawalpindi and Sargodha in April and May 2008 for training. They were earlier recruited in 2007 in two phases overseen by a police recruiting committee headed by the DPO, instead of a DIG rank officer as per the recruitment policy of the Punjab police.