ISLAMABAD: The recent assassination of Salmaan Taseer at the hands of his own bodyguard, an elite force commando, has finally forced the authorities to try and mark out ‘extremists in uniform’.
The governor’s killing is not the first instance in which the assassin happened to be a law enforcement officer with alleged religiously motivated convictions. In the recent past, officials of the Frontier Constabulary (FC) and army were found involved in terrorist attacks on multiple targets, including security forces.
Taseer’s murder has, however, prompted law enforcement agencies to try to ascertain the religious inclinations of their officials. It has been learnt that city policemen are currently being told to fill out and submit forms through which personality profiles may be generated. The form has been issued by the office of the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Operations, as part of a departmental exercise.
The form, titled “Character Attestation”, seeks personal information of the concerned police official in its first part. A supervisor is asked to provide details of the official’s religious affiliation, including sectarian affiliation and the names of any seminary that he attended. The second part seeks to profile the official’s family religious background and includes questions more pertinent for ascertaining the official’s possible affiliation with extremist organisations. This section is to be filled by an officer from the concerned official’s residential area’s police station.
“Does the official have sympathies for any extremist organisation?” asks one of the questions in the form, a copy of which was obtained by The Express Tribune.
One wonders if the official would reply honestly to that question. There is no mechanism in the form to determine that he has not played a bluff on the inquiring officer.
“A lot depends on the conduct of the police officer who has to fill in the details. He is the person responsible for collecting the details about the official and providing them in the form,” said SSP (Operations) Tahir Alam.
However, there is no provision in the form which requires the inquiring police officer to provide his name and details, nor is he asked to put his stamp or signature on the information he is providing.
Therefore, in the future, if a police official is found involved in an incident similar to the governor’s murder, it will be highly unlikely that the provided information turns out to be hundred per cent correct, or even close. More importantly, it would be extremely difficult to hold the inquiring police officer responsible for providing false details, if any, about the official.
These aspects cast a dark shadow on the credibility of an otherwise honest effort to scrutinise the police force for extremist elements.
“The special foci of the profiling exercise are the officials with less than ten years of service,” said Alam.
The form also seeks to elucidate information about the religion, sect, religious and conventional education of the police official’s father and brothers above 14 years of age.
Besides his political affiliations, the inquiry form also asks about possible past or present affiliations of the official or any of his relatives and family to extremist organisations. His area counsellor or numbardar is also asked to provide a report about his personality.
All these questions require extensive, careful and responsible research before the ‘character’ information of a police official is put on record.
SSP Alam added, “Such an exercise is also carried out when a new official joins the police. We felt the need for a fresh survey.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2011.
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