- Senior officials say they will not let govt hand over administrative control of CTD, Elite Force and Special Branch to Home Department
- Warn of going on extended leaves, avoiding field postings if govt goes ahead with plan
Senior officials of the Punjab Police on Wednesday voiced their reservations over the Punjab government’s decision to hand over the administrative control of three subordinate departments of the Punjab Police to the Home Department, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Police sources told Pakistan Today that senior officials, during a teleconference, vehemently opposed the government’s decision to hand over the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Elite Force and Special Branch to the Home Department. They said that the police officials believed that only police officials were capable of understanding and dealing with terrorism and formulating a policy to fight it, therefore there was no need to hand over the administrative control of these departments to the Home Department.
Sources said that the police officials believed that their force had sacrificed several lives in the line of duty and any attempt to reduce the department’s size would affect the personnel’s morale.
“The police officials warned of going on extended leaves if the Punjab government went ahead with its decision. They also urged the inspector general of Punjab Police to take a stand on the issue, and assured him of their full support,” said the sources.
On Sunday, around 25 officers of Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) ranking from assistant superintendents to senior superintendents met at Qilla Gujjar Singh police lines to share their concern over the government’s proposed plan.
The meeting, which lasted for six hours, decided that the officers would jointly lodge protest with their seniors including the provincial police chief (IG) at the Central Police Office on December 18.
The sources said the police officers also decided to avoid field postings across the province and run a campaign among their colleagues in the field to surrender such assignments. They decided to consider options of joining UN missions, scholarships and transfer to other provinces if police authorities didn’t resist the government’s move.
According to a police officer, police are already working under the command of chief secretary, but it is embarrassing for the provincial police officer to lose his powers as ex-officio secretary given under Police Order 2002 and let the home secretary control three police wings.
He said that the PML-Q government in Punjab had to withdraw a summary aiming to appoint 200 serving army captains on deputation as supervisory police officers across the province following the protest and resignation threat by PSP officers who feared losing postings against sanctioned posts.
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