According to the media version of the incident, the occupants of the vehicle that the police officer tried to discipline included Khawar Maneka, the former husband of First Lady Bushra Imran Khan, better known as Bushra Bibi. If media reports are to be believed, the police officer was not transferred straightaway: he was offered a lifeline to avoid the transfer by visiting Khawar Maneka at his dera and apologise for the ‘unnecessary’ action. The police officer preferred the transfer to saying sorry on the ‘advice’ of his seniors for what he thought was an action taken on merit.
With the incident going viral on social media and then taken up by television channels came the official response. Fayyaz-ul-Hasan Chohan, the new information minister of Punjab, insists that Gondal’s transfer has nothing to do with anything related to Khawar Maneka, and that Bani Gala or the Punjab chief minister have no role in the whole affair. Chohan claims that the transfer came in the wake of complaints against the district police chief — something that indeed smacks of the same old Purana Pakistan cover-up tactics. The incident comes up as a test case for Prime Minister Imran Khan whose many pledges include freeing the police from political pressures and influences. This is where the PM needs to start off. An independent inquiry into the incident is a must.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 29th, 2018.
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