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LAHORE, Jan 31: Gujrat District Police Officer Raja Munawar Husain has been made an officer on special duty and directed to immediately report to the Police Headquarters in Lahore.
According to a notification issued by IGP Saadatullah Khan here on Monday, Javed Iqbal Shami, additional superintendent of police in Gujrat, will officiate as the DPO till a permanent appointment to the office is made.
Raja Munawar was among the three police officers, including DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal, who fled from the Lahore High Court after their bails were not confirmed. The court ordered their arrest as an accused in the Sialkot jail firing case which took place on July 25, 2003.
DIG: No such orders for DIG Malik Iqbal, who is now serving the National Highway Authority, have so far been issued, although he was one of the nominated accused in the FIR.
The police department committed itself last week that all the accused police officers fleeing the court would be made OSDs. When contacted, a department spokesman said it was to issue such orders also for the DIG on Monday but he did not know whether a notification was pronounced.
Legal experts, however, wonder why the police have failed to arrest the officers and given them a minor punishment, though they should face charges in courts of law. It is all the more anomalous, they say, that the officers have escaped the arrest despite the fact that they have been with the police all the time for five days after they fled the courtroom.
The only superior judicial forum available to the three police officers for bail and other legal relief is the Supreme Court because a division bench of the LHC has already rejected their bail plea, according to experts.
