GUJRAT, Nov 17: Punjab IGP Ziaul Hasan has expressed his satisfaction with the performance of range police, elite force and reserved armed during Kotla operation in which 12 POs were arrested and a hired assassin killed.

Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi has also appreciated the police performance. This was stated by Gujranwala range additional IG Malik Mohammad Iqbal while talking to Dawn by telephone here on Friday.

He said the higher authorities had directed him to launch a range-wide drive against criminals and those involved in sheltering them.

The additional IG said he with the help of Gujrat DPO Syed Ahsan Mehboob had chalked out a plan to raid Kotla Arab Ali Khan in view of secret information about the presence of criminals at the outhouse of Naeem Raza.

He said the plan was foolproof and secret to the extent that no other police official to the rank of SP or DSP was informed about it.

He said first he conducted a secret visit of Kotla and its suburbs and later constituted two teams involving elite force and reserved armed from Mandi Bahauddin, Sialkot and Gujranwala. He ruled out the possibility of information leak by any policeman and escape of any PO or criminal before or during raids.

He said the range police had traced almost all the cases related to kidnap for ransom and arrested kidnappers, besides recovering the abducted and the ransom. He recalled a recent case in which the minor daughter of a couple was kidnapped at Mandi Bahauddin where the police not only arrested the culprit but also recovered the girl and Rs0.5 million ransom.

Mr Iqbal said he had convened a meeting of the DPOs of Gujranwala, Sialkot and Gujrat to decide strategies for launching operations against criminals in the three districts. — Correspondent