HYDERABAD: The Sindh government has wound up the posts of additional inspector general/regional police officer of Hyderabad and Sukkur regions in a major policy decision. The posts have been re-designated, according to a handout.

“The posts of AIG Regional Police Officer Hyderabad and Sukkur Regions are re-designated as AIG Police Training and AIG (Research & Deve­lopment)”, the notification issued on Friday said.

“Both these set ups have been a burden on the police department from day one,” commented a police officer. “It is good riddance,” observed an SSP, who said that the “department can still make better changes”.

Dr Jamil Ahmed was serving as the AIG Hyderabad Region and Dr Kamran Fazal as the AIG Sukkur Region before issuance of this notification.

Dr Jamil is otherwise going to retire in the coming week. In March 2019, then Sindh IG Dr Syed Kaleem Imam had defined a ‘charter of duties’ of AIGs. According to clause 2.1 the “administrative powers of this charter for AIG is to post/transfer DSP within region from panel of three officers provided by relevant DIsGP.

One source confided to Dawn : “To date, no consultation is done with relevant DIsGP in region by successive Additional IGs for posting of DSP”.

The regional police set up of Hyderabad, at least, has been in the limelight for all wrong reasons ever since its creation. Creation of the regional set-up was a brainchild of Sindh IG Dr Imam. He, apparently, intended to decentralise powers at regional levels so that petty issues of policemen are resolved although some of his subordinates had advised him against it. Each and everything was defined in policy by IG including operational, administrative and financial powers of AIGs.

But it seems that desired results could not be achieved. Rather, the idea backfired. At least one after very first AIG Hyderabad Region Ghulam Sarwar Jamali had to face unceremonious departure from this position months before retirement after policemen under his authority acted beyond limits. A senior level inquiry conducted by AIG Imran Yaqoob Minhas gave damaging findings against regional police following a raid at an oil factory on June 25, 2019. Some policemen were punished. Then AIG Jamali could not get along with SSPs in his region, particularly then SSP Hyderabad Sarfaraz Nawaz Shaikh, considered to be a docile officer.

AIG Jamali had formed a special team that was carrying out raids across Hyderabad region. Besides the inquiry by AIG Minhas, then DIG Naeem Shaikh had also conducted a separate inquiry involving policemen from Hyderabad region’s office and he finally recommended closure of all special teams in Sindh police in the backdrop of a June 17, 2019 raid by the same AIG’s team which was led by a head clerk.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2021