PHOTO: IHC WEBSITE
The premier may also not know that the same officer arrested Saulat Mirza – the man who opened the Pandora’s Box against Altaf Hussain and the MQM, along with several other target killers.
Despite his many decorations, since 1998, Farooq Amin Qureshi has been stuck in grade 20. The Police Service of Pakistan officer claims he was superseded by the current lot of inspectors general of police.
He disclosed the details before a division bench of the Islamabad High Court comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb while presenting arguments in person in the bureaucrats’ promotions case.
“Musharraf illegally confined me for five months and pressurised to become an approver against Sharif, and others, but I refused on moral and professional grounds,” Qureshi informed the IHC division bench.
After the hearing, Qureshi told The Express Tribune that he was also demoted to grade-19 on the basis of false intelligence reports that could not be proven and were ultimately withdrawn.
He was Karachi’s DIG Crime when Mirza was arrested and confessed to his involvement in several crimes. Qureshi could be seen sitting next to him at the press conference in 1998.
While referring to Mirza, he said that the “statements that became the talk of the town” were first recorded by him.
In 2006, he said, he was considered for promotion to BS-20, but was later denied.
He challenged the decision before the Sindh High Court (SHC) in 2007, where the court perused record from 2000 to 2008 as well as the intelligence reports on the basis of which his promotion was denied.
Subsequently, in 2010, the SHC set aside the supersession and ordered the Central Selection Board (CSB) to promote from the date his juniors were promoted.
The board, however, promoted him to grade-20 effective from 2009. “After over a decade, I got back to where I was in 1998,” he said.
From 2011 to 2015, the board continued to deny promotions to him on the basis of “fake intelligence reports” and his ‘limited experience’.
The was contrary to the fact that Qureshi commanded seven districts in Sindh as and Karachi and was also a deputy director at the Federal Investigation Agency and Railways SSP in Karachi and Lahore.
After he appealed over the CSB’s handling of the high court judgement, the Supreme Court directed the CSB to re-examine the case “without, in any way, being influenced by the observations made in the summary for the return of the recommendation.”
The Establishment Division, however, prepared a panel for the year 2014-2015 and “hid these facts from the [prime minister],” which once again resulted in deferment.
Next year, he said, the CSB recommended him for promotion in grade-21, but since the PM was not apprised about the SC and the SHC orders, it was deferred again.
The CSB deferred the promotion with the observation that it wanted “to further observe his work-related performance.”
Qureshi told the court that he was due for retirement in December 2016, but the Establishment Division had claimed in court that he had already retired.
During his arguments, the bench remarked that “he may well have been treated unfairly and victimised”, but the court would only decide, if he should be considered for promotion as per the previous or new criteria.
The case was adjourned till Monday.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 11th, 2016.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ