LAHORE: Zafar managed hard to stand in line when as he saw his colleagues enter bluntly in the office of the reserve inspector and leave one after the other carrying sweaters.
Zafar was standing at the Police Lines Qila Gujjar Singh to get a new sweater for himself and his friend, as the intensifying cold was making his job a little difficult.
Zafar is a constable and he joined the Punjab Police about eight years ago. He is currently posted in Lahore Police Cantonment Division. Wednesday was a hectic day for Zafar at his job when he decided to collect his sweater from the police lines.
When he reached the police lines, he found more than a dozen policemen standing in a long queue. He joined them and started waiting for his turn. “I was standing in the queue and was waiting for my turn when I observed a few policemen getting their sweaters without observing queue. They got their sweaters in no time,” said Zafar while talking to Pakistan Today.
“On my turn when I approached the policemen deputed to distribute sweaters, one of them asked me to go and get my documents signed from the concerned deputy superintendent of police, as he wanted to know if I was allowed to get my share or not,” Zafar said. He said, “Meanwhile I saw a few others getting sweaters without any receipts.
When I questioned the policeman distributing sweaters, he demanded a twenty rupee note for each sweater. I did not want to waste more time there so I gave him rupees twenty and collected my sweaters.” He said this was a routine matter for the policemen working in stores. Constables have to give Rs 50 to 100 to get a new uniform, for resubmitting weapons, to get a charpoy or for minor things like sweaters, he added.
He claimed that the corruption within the police departments was much higher than the one external to the department. He said, “We get our initial training from the police lines and unfaithful policemen here are setting a bad precedent for the new comers. We are forced to bribe to get our work done.” Zafar held a single man responsible for all the corruption; Inspector Reserves Nazir Bajwa.
He said Bajwa started his career as a constable and now he is serving as an inspector. He has been working in the stores since 20 to 25 years, he added. Bajwa denied all the allegations leveled against him and said that he had not received any complaint from the policemen in this regard. He however said that it was not his duty to look into the stores’ affairs.
Sources in Police Lines Qila Gujjar Singh confirmed Zafar’s statement and said it was a routine matter for the policemen in stores to charge Rs 20 to 30. Superintendent of Police Head Quarters Munir Ahmed Zia was not available for comments.
