Attack on Sri Lankan team: Punjab refuses to punish ‘negligent’ police officers

Inquiry recommended action against several officers, but provincial authorities sought only to go after former IG.

ISLAMABAD:

The Punjab government is refusing to take action against police officers that a judicial commission found had been negligent in their duty of providing security for the Sri Lankan cricket team on its tour of Pakistan two years ago.

Seven policemen were killed and several cricketers injured in a gun and grenade attack on the Sri Lankan team bus near Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on March 3, 2009. A commission headed by Justice Shabir Raza Rizvi was formed on March 11, 2009, to investigate the causes of the lax security for the team.

At a Senate committee on sports hearing last Tuesday to review the status of the recommendations made by Justice Rizvi, the additional secretary of the Establishment Division told senators that the Punjab government had informed the federal government that it would not be acting on the recommendations.

Official documents submitted to the Senate body show that Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, whilst presiding over a meeting to review the commission’s report, had ordered that its recommendations not be implemented.

The commission had found that certain Punjab police officers in top positions in the province at the time of the attack were negligent in their duties. After carrying out the attack in the commercial heart of Lahore, the gunmen were able to flee easily.

Khaliq Akhlaq Gilani, the additional secretary, told the Senate committee that the Establishment Division had repeatedly asked the Punjab government to prepare a charge sheet and statement of allegations against the officers in order to initiate a departmental inquiry.

But, he said, the Punjab government was of the view that action should be taken only against the then Inspector General Khalid Farooq Khawaja, who is now retired. The Punjab government said it would not take any action against the serving police officers, but only against the former IG, on the grounds that he did not act as a commander of the force in a war-like situation. The additional secretary said the Establishment Division had responded that several police officers had been found culpable in the inquiry report, and “it is not tenable to single out one officer”.

The committee on sports is chaired by Senator Ghafar Qureshi and includes senators Jehangir Badr, Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Haroon Khan and Naeem Chattha. Sources said that they had asked whether the judicial commission’s report had the status of a judicial verdict.

The senators observed that it was important that the international community, as well as the Pakistani nation, saw the government take action on the matter.

Otherwise, they may not trust that their cricket teams would ever be safe touring Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2011.