FAISALABAD, July 21: The police involvement in selling explosive material to traders has landed the town SPs and the supervisory police officers in trouble as they have been directed to submit within a week clearance certificates showing all seized material has been properly stored.

City Police Officer Bilal Siddique Kamyana issued the direction here on Saturday.

This is the second time in a couple of months that a case property has been misused by the police. The Saddar police station officials had changed heroin, opium and charas worth millions of rupees with white powder and black soap a few months ago. Former Saddar police SHO Ayub Sahi was held responsible and that led to his suspension and registration of a case against him.

The inquiry of the issue is pending with Lyallpur Town SP Zahid Saeed Gondal.

Sources said the CPO had expressed resentment over the failure of the Khurrianwala SPO and asked SPs and SPOs to submit clearance certificates and prepare official register for noting down details of the case properties to ensure submission of such evidences to the official stores. He also asked them to conduct the inspections of police stations to check irregularities.

The CPO suspended Khurrianwala police SHO Muhammad Sarwar from service. Sources said the CPO summoned the SHO to hear his version, although SSP (operations) Sadiq Ali conducted preliminary investigation and found the SHO guilty of selling explosives to dealers.

The SSP concluded that the SHO’s gunmen and his private employee Javed had sold the explosives to Iqbal and Imtiaz. Iqbal put the explosives near the Borstal that panicked the police officials.

Sources quoted the SHO as saying (before the CPO) that he had placed the explosives at his quarter owing to lack of space and fearing it could explode and damage the police station building. He denied selling the explosives.

The CPO told Dawn that the SHO had been suspended from service and action would also be taken against the SPO for poor supervision. He said all SPs and SPOs would submit certificates that would be counter-checked.

Meanwhile, District Coordination Officer Nasim Sadiq met Regional Police Officer Aftab Ahmed Cheema and asked him to bring the culprit(s) to book.

A district government official said all initiatives such as check on sale of explosives on events like Shab-i-Bara’at were futile as the police were in the dock over this particular issue.

Social circles have expressed concern over the police shenanigans. Pakistan Medical Association Information Secretary Dr Muhammad Irfan said the involvement of the police in selling seized explosive material was frightening to say the least.