KARACHI: In a surprise development, all police guards provided to every religious party or personality in the city have been withdrawn by the police department, it emerged on Wednesday.

Over 12,000 policemen are doing security duty with politicians, businessmen, etc, and of them, an estimated 3,000 police guards are posted with different religious parties and personalities.

Additional Inspector General of Police, Karachi, Akthar Husain Gorchani confirmed to Dawn that the police guards given to religious leaders belonging to all the religious parties had been withdrawn and it was basically a ‘pre-emptive move’. He did not elaborate.

However, sources said that at a meeting chaired by Sindh police chief Mushtaq Shah, some senior police officers expressed anger over a demand made by participants in a recent night-long sit-in outside the Sindh Governor’s House that CID SP Chaudhry Aslam be nominated in a murder case.

The sources said that the police officers wanted that the police guards provided to the religious leaders of the community concerned be withdrawn.

“We could not have acted in a one-sided manner so we have decided to act across the board [withdraw guards from all religious personalities instead of from one community only],” said an officer who attended the meeting.

The city police chief said that the decision could be revised at some later stage.

The religious parties, however, slammed the decision.

Condemning the move, a spokesman for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Maulana Taj Hanfi, told Dawn that the police guards had been withdrawn.

Sunni Tehreek leader Shahid Ghauri also condemned the police department’s decision.

Allama Abbas Kumaili of the Jaffaria Alliance said that the police guards deputed for his security vanished without any prior notice.