PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday ordered the restoration of salary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa inspector general of police (IGP), which was attached last month over his failure to respond to a petition challenging the deployment of around 5,500 policemen for security of VIPs.

The development comes as IGP Salahuddin Mehsud filed the sought-after comments after a delay of several months.

Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ikramullah fixed Apr 4 for hearing into the petition of senior lawyer Mohammad Khurshid, who sought several directives from the court for the KP government and police department with the request either ban the VIPs security or order recruitment of more police officials for ensuring peace and protection to the people.

IGP says efforts on to withdraw unsanctioned guards, ensure smooth flow of traffic

Last month, the court had ordered attachment of the salary of KP IGP, Salahuddin Mehsud.

The bench ordered detachment of the salary after DSP (legal) Abdur Rehman Khan produced the comments of the IGP.

In his comments, the IGP disagreed with several assertions made by the petitioner and requested the bench to dispose of the petition saying the police are trying their best to withdraw all unsanctioned guards and ensure the smooth flow of traffic and security of the people.

He said in order to prevent the misuse of police guards by unauthorised people, a campaign was launched by the KP police to withdraw such guards and to dedicate them for the safety and protection of general public.

“During this campaign, 368 constables were withdrawn from unauthorized persons,” he said.

The IGP said most of the police guards were designated and the additional security arrangements had been made to avert and prevent subversive activities in view of looming security threats.

He agreed with the petitioner that policemen had been deputed for security of the government servants, public representatives and others and that security guards had been provided to them to foil incidents of terrorism, which had created a sense of insecurity among the general public.

The IGP however opposed the suggestion made by the petitioner for fixation of specific time for VIP movement on roads to avoid traffic jams, saying the fixation of time for the movement of government servants, public representatives and others was not advisable from the security’s point of view.

The petitioner claimed that he after receiving information from the police department under the Right to Information Act, he was surprised to know that 5,500 policemen had been deployed for the security of VIPs in the province.

He said while the ruling PTI had claimed to have ended VIP protocol in the province but in Peshawar alone, 1,529 police personnel had still been deployed on VIPs duties, whereas the police strength in the city was 6,200.

The petitioner requested the court to direct the government to submit details about the expenses being incurred on the 5,500 policemen deployed for VIPs security.

He also sought the court’s orders for the government to ensure protection of the public life and property saying it is the state’s constitutional obligation and to restrict the unnecessary movement of VIPs on roads to reduce miseries of people.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2018