KARACHI, March 19: Three police officials were suspended and booked in a case of dereliction from duty who were deployed at the US consulate.

Police said that assistant sub-inspectors Taj Mohammad, Yar Mohammad and Abdul Hameed were deployed at the US consulate on security duty.

Their duty timings were from 8pm to 8am, however, when some unidentified men left an explosive-laden vehicle near the consulate at 7:15am on March 15 the policemen were not present on duty.

Three police officials were charged of leaving the place of their deployment one hour before their duty timings, which was a negligence on their part. On the contrary, the suspended officials claimed that they were present on duty.

An FIR (29/04) was registered against the officials under Section 155(d) of the Police Order 2002 at Artillery Maidan police station. Police said that the suspended officials were produced before the court of judicial magistrate, Umer Awan.

The court remanded them in police custody for two days. They would again be produced before the court on Saturday for obtaining further remand, police said.