KARACHI, Sept 5: A case was registered against nine policemen on Saturday on the charge of showing some of their colleagues on duty while they bunked off work.
However, all the officials booked in the FIR 152/04 following a departmental inquiry escaped arrest and went into hiding, a duty officer of the Khwaja Ajmer Nagri police station told Dawn on Saturday.
Sources said the inquiry had raised certain questions as the policemen, who were on duty on paper, could be involved in criminal activities but they had a proof that they were on duty.
They also said the absence of these police officials could have led to a serious security lapse, jeopardizing the lives of the various VIPs whom they were supposed to be guarding.
Official sources said that an inquiry was ordered by Tariq Jamil, when he was DIG Operations, to investigate if there were any irregularities in zonal police headquarters. The inquiry was assigned to the ASP of Saddar, Kashif Kanjoo.
Following the inquiry report, nine company commanders who assigned duties to police officials at different places were booked under sections 155-C and 155-D of the Police Order 2002. They were charged that they assigned duties to those police officials who did not actually attend their duties but collected salaries.
Those nine company commanders booked in the FIR are assistant sub-inspectors Malik Mohammad Ameer, Imtiaz Hussain, Syed Waseem Ali, Shakir Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Ghulam Shabbir, and head constables Jamil Lodhi, Mohammad Tufail and Naeem Jamali. The FIR was registered by inspector Sikandar Ali Jatoi of the reserve force of the Khwaja Ajmer Nagri police headquarters
The inquiry report, submitted to the city police chief Tariq Jamil, showed that on an average 133 policemen, on paper assigned to be on duty by the Khwaja Ajmer Nagri police headquarters, had bunked off work in the past seven months.
It stated that at least 934 policemen were dispatched by the Khwaja Ajmer Nagri police headquarters to perform various types of duties, including providing security to the VIPs, during the past seven months. While they were on duty according to a record book kept by the munshi (company commanders), they bunked off work.
Conducting an inquiry titled "Salary distribution and scrutiny of record of Headquarters Khawaja Ajmair Nagri", Saddar ASP Kashif Kanju scrutinised the record including issue-register, station dairy etc from Jan 10 to July 10.
During that period, around 900 police officials were sorted out who were sent on duties outside the headquarters, but they were not issued arms/ammunition or anti-riot gear, the report said.
"Since weapons were not issued to them, it raises questions about the duties actually performed by them, or were they allowed to bunk off work," the report added. ASP Kashif Kanju told Dawn that out of the 934 policemen, 45 were found missing on more than four occasions.
Over 500 policemen were found missing on more than one occasion. Citing the reason why weapons were not issued to the policemen while leaving the headquarters for duty, the ASP said that the policemen would become bound to return the weapons, thus their absence would become meaningless.
It is also suspected that some of the policemen are even overseas but they were shown present on paper performing duties. City police chief Tariq Jamil has ordered registration of cases under police order 2002 against officials conniving with the company commanders.
A senior police officer said the recent involvement of the policemen in a dacoity near the Sindh Secretariat endorsed the findings of this report.