LAHORE: The Punjab government on Sunday reshuffled seven DIG-rank police officers including Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) head Waseem Ahmad Khan and Lahore DIG Operations retired Capt Sohail Chaudhry.

Contrary to the previous practice, “all the transfer/postings” were made on the recommendations of IGP Faisal Shahkar this time round.

The government has made CTD Additional IG Waseem Ahmad Khan an OSD till further order. The posting orders were issued shortly after Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi interviewed the police officers at his office here on Sunday noon.

An official told Dawn that the IGP faced resistance from the CM Secretariat for the appointment of the police officers he had proposed. He said the provincial police officer had proposed names of the police officers on Saturday with a request to the CM to consider them for the slots he had mentioned against the names of each of them.

He said the officials in the CM Secretariat declared it an unusual practice and conveyed to the IGP that the posting of senior police officers used to be made on the directions of the CM office and suggested him to review his proposal or wait for ‘further order’ from the secretariat.

However, he said, the PPO told them that he wanted appointments of all the proposed police officers against the slots and asked them to submit the summary to the CM for final consideration/approval.

In the summary, the IGP had recommended to the CM to transfer Sargodha Regional Police Officer (RPO) Imran Mehmood and post him as new Additional IG CTD Punjab vice Waseem Ahmad Khan.

DIG Intelligence Special Branch Punjab should be transferred and posted as new RPO Sargodha, while Afzal Mahmud Butt (awaiting posting) should be made Lahore DIG VVIP Security Branch vice Faisal Ali Raja who should be transferred and posted as DIG intelligence in Special Branch Punjab.

The IG also proposed mutual transfer of DIG Operations Sohail Chaudhry and CTD Punjab DIG Afzaal Ahmad Kausar.

In the earlier practice, the official said, the CM secretariat used to convey the IGP about the selection of police officers for field postings. As the summary reached the chief minister, he issued order to stop process on it while raising objections to the names of some police officers. The matter remained under discussion between the IGP office and the CM secretariat and Parvez Elahi directed Shahkar to send names of other police officers too.

Following the “conflict” over the postings of the police officers, Faisal Shahkar on Sunday sent a request for an emergent meeting with the CM, which was accepted accordingly. Consequently, he met Parvez Elahi on Sunday morning and took up the issue with him, requesting him to give “some space” to the PPO in the core domain of transfers/postings of police officers.

The official said Shahkar told the CM that the police circles were raising questions about the ‘jurisdiction’ of the IGP in transfer and posting matters as they believed that most previous reshuffles in police were “politically motivated”. The IGP further conveyed to the CM that some selective police officers were repeatedly getting field postings in the province and submitted a request to review this practice to avoid brain drain of competent/professional officers. After a brief brainstorming on the matter, the CM agreed to the proposal and called the police officers for an interview, the official source said. Except Waseem Sial, all other police officers reached there, he said, adding that an interesting development took place when Sohail Chaudhry suddenly left the CM secretariat a few minutes before his scheduled meeting with Parvez Elahi for interview.

As for the probable reason, he said, PTI senior leader Shafqat Mahmood also reached the CM secretariat around that time and showed his annoyance over police action against his party leaders in Lahore. He said some police officers suggested to Sohail Chaudhry to leave the CM secretariat to avoid confrontation with the PTI leader and he immediately left without seeing the Punjab CM.

A couple of hours after the interviews, the Punjab government issued notifications of the police officers in accordance with the summary sent by the IGP.

Interestingly, the official said, the CM also held interviews of newly-posted Faisalabad RPO Moeen Masood and City Police Officer DIG Omer Saeed Malik two days after their appointment.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2022