RAWALPINDI, March 13: Nineteen police commandos have been taken off the VIPs security duties after being assessed a possible security risk.

They belonged to the Elite Force, as did Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri who is facing trial for gunning down Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in Islamabad while on duty to protect him on January 4.

“Yes, the 19 have been relieved of security duties and have been sent to Police Lines,” Regional Police Officer Hamid Mukhtar Gondal confirmed to Dawn.

“I had proposed to the authorities to take them off VIP duty but let them perform other duties because their immobilisation would create shortage of manpower in the department and demoralise the force,” he added.

A senior official of the Elite Force said the 19 had been off the VIP security duties immediately after receiving the word from AIG Elite Force Syed Kalb-i-Abbas while written orders were yet to come.

A source said the Additional Inspector General had sent a letter to the RPO Rawalpindi, Hamid Mukhtar Gondal, concerning the intelligence and scrutiny test report on the 19 personnel and directed him not to deploy them on any duty, especially for VIP guard duty.

The source said the letter contained the names and other particulars of the 19 personnel.

After the assassination of Governor Taseer, the AIG had directed scrutiny of Elite Force officials in the district, examining them for any connection with the extremist or fundamentalist outfits.

As the records of all personnel were scanned, they were interviewed in detail by senior police experts. Their cellphone records and personal movements were also checked.

Also a few days after Taseer’s killing, the chief of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) police wrote to his counterpart in Punjab, intimating him about the four police officials posted in Rawalpindi – one of them deployed with the Punjab chief minister’s squad – having “extreme religious trends”.

The four were withdrawn from the Elite Force immediately.

One of them was Shakeel Qadri, a cousin of Taseer’s killer. The remaining three were Shaheen Sabir of Punjab Constabulary, who had been performing security duty with the CM’s squad, and constables Taimoor and Naseer.

In his letter, the IGP had asked his counterpart to hand over the four policemen to Islamabad police as they were required by the joint investigation team probing the murder of Taseer. They were given to the Islamabad police.