CCPO brags ‘no failure in protection of PIC’

Claims police dealt with matter beautifully, professionally

LAHORE: Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore Zulfiqar Hameed claimed there was ‘no possibility of police failure’ in dealing with the law and order situation that emerged after the lawyers’ attack at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) hospital.

Hundreds of lawyers walked throughout the city around five kilometres after gathering outside Aiwan-e-Adal, attacked the hospital, broke windowpanes, tortured doctors, staff, patients, hurled stones, put on fire a police van and also resorted to aerial firing.

The ‘vandalism’ continued unabated for over two hours. However, Hameed remained adamant that police dealt it ‘beautifully’.

Contrarily, he bragged about dealing the matter beautifully and professionally while speaking to media persons outside the PIC on Thursday.

Fissures in lawyers, media ties over PIC attack coverage

He quoted police restraint, use of force as a last resort and playing a role for reconciliation between doctors and lawyers two days back. Between the lines, he tried to put the burden on bar politics ahead of elections behind the instigations that led to this incident.

Hameed remained adamant that there was no police failure in dealing with the situation of the attack on the hospital that continued for over two hours.

He said Wednesday’s incident was an outcome of a sequence of events that needed to be considered before.

He said a day earlier, negotiations between the doctors and the lawyers had reached in presence of senior police officers, doctors, lawyers and representatives of the health department. Doctors had announced to a tender apology in this record.

Afterwards, there was no apprehension or information about the attack.

Ahead of the bar elections, a few groups as part of politics tried to give a certain colour to it afterwards they started marching towards the hospital.

Police was escorting them. Police tried to engage them at few points and also held negotiations that they should record their protest at an earlier point. SSP Operations Muhammad Naveed held negotiations with them at Qartaba and Shamdan Chowk. However, they refused it and kept on moving forward.

Police stopped them twice before they entered the hospital. However, for the third time, it resorted to using the force. Police showed restraint and used minimum force, he added.

On a question, he said that until and unless there was any violent incident, it was not good to resort to using of force.

Lawyers in the dock: 250 booked on terrorism in PIC attack

On another question, he said that use of force or not was the prerogative of a police officer. It is a dichotomy that police was criticised in both ways; for using or not using the force. As the future line of action, he vowed to take action according to the law for any illegality committed. He said they were identifying the suspects using CCTV footages.

It is also worth noting that CCPO visited the site (PIC) the next day and the DIG Operations reached after two hours after the conflict started.

Police deployment was increased in the city after the incident. Heavy contingents of Anti-Riot Force were deployed on important of the city. CCPO Zulfiqar Hameed and DIG Operations Rai Babar Saeed visited the points to review the arrangements.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2019.