ISLAMABAD: The capital police have decided to appoint the deputy inspector general of security division as the commanding officer for the security of VVIPs to plug possible loopholes due to more than one commanding officers in the field.

In practice, senior officers of different wings – operation, security, headquarters and traffic – along with the Special Branch command their subordinates during the presence and movement of the VVIPs, a police officer told Dawn on the condition of anonymity.

Though they worked under the inspector general of the police (IGP), in the field each of them acted as a commanding officer.

The security plan and measures are finalised at a meeting presided over by the IGP and attended by senior officers of the operation, security wings, headquarters and Special Branch.

While in the field on the VVIP security duty, each of the senior officers supervised their respective force instead of a single commander.

As a result, several loopholes and flaws could be seen in the security measures for the VVIPs. But such shortcomings are minor, so they never created any untoward incident, he added.

However, these loopholes should be plugged to avoid any mishap, he added.

The officer said one of the major flaws in deploying multiple commanding officers was that an officer can only order his own subordinates.

If any officer observes a flaw in the security made by another division, he cannot issue directives to remove it.

So approaching the division commanding officer and informing him about the issue takes time and may lead to any mishap, he said, adding if there was one commanding officer he can take decisions or issue orders on the spot to remove the shortcoming.

Now the high-ups have decided to appoint a single commanding officer to supervise all the divisions and wings instead of their respective heads, he added.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015

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