‘Connections’ mock the long arm of the law

As a capital city police officer you certainly don’t have to worry about your transfer if you happen to have ‘connections’ with the top command of a former ruling party. Just being the brother of a Sindhi politician’s cook or being a relation of a security guard of a Sindhi ‘influential’ would suffice.

Transfers and postings of the police officials in the federal capital has turned out to be a case of ‘Who dares wins’ as police officials have been allegedly found using ‘connections’ with the country’s political elite to not only get themselves posted in commanding and ‘lucrative’ positions in the police department, but also to delay the implementation of their transfer orders.

In the backdrop of shuffling of government officials across the province to ensure transparent elections, a strange incident was witnessed on Thursday when just two hours after the issuance of a notification seeking transfers of 16 SHOs from the capital city police stations, the implementation of the order was ‘postponed’.

According to the notification, SHO Jamshed has been transferred from I-9 Police Station to Tarnol Police Station, SHO Sajjad Bukhari to Shalimar Police Station, SHO Qasim Niazi from Sabzi Mandi to Margalla Police Station, SHO Mehboob Ahmad from Barah Kahoo Police Station to I-9 Police Station, SHO Ghulam Baqar from Shalimar Police Station to Kohsar Police Station, SHO Haakim Khan from Kohsar Police Station to Shehzad Town Police Station, and SHO Muhammad Fazal Husain from Tarnol Police Station to Bani Gala Police Station while Additional SHO Inspector Mubarak Ali has been appointed as SHO of Secretariat Police Station.

Sources told Pakistan Today that a few of the SHOs allegedly used their ‘connections’ with the country’s top order against the transfer orders, pressurising the IGP to put a halt to their shifting.

Sources report that Tarnol SHO Mohammad Fazal Husain who has been transferred to Bani Gala Police Station used his ‘links’ with a former ruling party to delay the implementation of his transfer orders. Sources alleged that Fazal had been enjoying the command of Tarnol Police Station even though he is just a sub-inspector, a rank insufficient to assume the said post.

Sources report that Fazal, by virtue of his ‘links’, got himself posted at Tarnol because it was a ‘lucrative’ police station. The station being linked to the GT Road leading to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was a site best-suited for ‘bribe collection’ as drug peddlers were often intercepted by police in the area.

Sources alleged that many inspectors senior to Fazal were not happy working in his command because they considered him their junior. Sources report that he had been transferred earlier but he ‘managed’ his way back to Tarnol as other police stations were not ‘promising enough financially’.

A similar wrongdoing has been reported of Margala SHO Arshad Abro who has managed his way out from his transfer to Rescue 15. Sources claim that Arshad was the brother of the cook of an influential from a Sindhi political party. Sources claim that Arshad also used his ‘connections’ in delaying the implementation of the orders issued yesterday.

According the police spokesman, the transfer orders ‘may be’ implemented in two to three days. The spokesman said that the reason behind the delaying of the said orders was ‘not clear’, reported a news agency.