LAHORE: The Punjab police department has imposed a province-wide ban on the transfer/posting of newly-promoted inspectors after making reshuffle of some ‘blue-eyed’ inspectors to their domiciled [home] districts.

The department had promoted 368 sub-inspectors all over the province to the rank of inspectors and transferred them from their respective posting stations/cities to other regions and units in October and November last year for actualisation under a standing order of the provincial police officer (PPO).

Before imposing ban on Feb 4, the police high-ups transferred some police inspectors back to their previous district of posting without seeking no objection certificates (NOCs), a mandatory requirement of the department.

Another interesting aspect of the development was that the central police office (CPO) reshuffled some inspectors even after issuing notification of ban on Feb 10 and Feb 14.

Establishment AIG says transfers banned after office flooded with requests for posting in home dists

On the other hand, the CPO turned down the requisitions of the heads of the regions, including the Lahore and Rawalpindi, to place the transferred police inspectors back to their districts.

Their requests were not entertained, even the heads of the respective regions had issued NOCs to swap the police inspectors, leaving the affectees in utter shock on the decision of the CPO to prefer the ‘non-department personalities.’

It has also ignored many individual requests of the inspectors submitted on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.

One of them was father of five school-going minor girls and his wife had to look after them in Lahore after his transfer to a region, some 330 kilometer away from the provincial capital.

The transfer/postings were made following ‘policy for the regulation of transfers/postings of the junior ranks of the Punjab police department.’

Of them, 126 were transferred to other regions and units from Lahore district, 104 from Rawalpindi and others from Gujranwala, DG Khan, Faisalabad, Sheikhupura, Sargodha regions etc.

The policy was circulated through a standing order (SO) that was issued and notified by the PPO. All the documents pertaining to the official correspondence are available with Dawn.

An official privy to the entire process, however, declared it a ‘flawed policy’ of the police department while unfolding many ‘discriminatory’ aspects saying some senior police officers [allegedly] misused it.

He said the officers first discriminated against the rankers by making promotions of officials belonging to the 2007 and 2008 batches in 2021.

Under the given policy, the promotions of each batch were to be done separately in 2013-2014, the official said.

He said after promoting a large number of sub-inspectors (368), the department reshuffled all of them in one go instead of making transfers/postings in phases which was another major mistake on the part of the police high-ups.

Similarly, there were many instances that in the past the police inspectors on promotion had been transferred to the nearby regions for actualisation, the official said.

For example, most of the inspectors promoted in Lahore were transferred and posted in Sheikhupra, Gujranwala, Faisalabad etc.

However, this time, the department transferred several newly-promoted inspectors to hundreds of kilometres away from their domiciled districts which is a sort of displacement for their families.

Even they were transferred to DG Khan, Bahawalpur, Multan and Rawalpindi from Lahore and forced to live in ‘subhuman’ conditions as many of them were facing accommodation, quality food and transport issues.

The same was the case with those who were promoted in DG Khan, Bahawalpur, Multan etc and transferred to Lahore and other districts.

Some official correspondence between the regional and district police heads also endorsed the above-mentioned situation when the Punjab police senior command turned down their requests of “urgency of matters” to re-allot the inspectors their previous posting stations.

In a letter addressed to the IG Punjab on Jan 4, Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Fayyaz Ahmad Dev had sent a requisition of 12 inspectors transferred to other regions/units from Lahore, praying him to re-allocate them the Lahore district for actualisation of promotion.

The request was sent on the recommendations of the Lahore DIG Investigation for their postings in the wing in-question.

Similarly, the CCPO sent another written request on Jan 20 to the IG to place 16 newly promoted inspectors back to Lahore.

The requisition was dispatched on the recommendations of Lahore DIG Operations who wanted posting of these 16 inspectors in his wing.

In these requisitions, the CCPO had also sent names of alternative inspectors for replacement to avoid any inconvenience but both the requests were turned down.

Likewise, the requests of other regional heads were treated in the same manner.

Punjab Police Establishment Additional IG Ali Aamir Malik defended the decision of ban on transfer/postings of newly promoted police inspectors.

He said the ban was put on the order of the IG when he got too many requests from the regions and individuals for the posting of the inspectors to their home districts.

He expressed his ignorance about the transfers of some of the inspectors [after the ban].

Mr Aamir said all transfer/postings were made purely on merit saying the inspectors sent to far-off places from home districts were low on merit list.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2022