Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Umar Sheikh has written to the special branch, Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other secret agencies to provide business and earning details other than government salary of the police officers. He has also asked them to provide information about the reputation of police officers. At the initial stage, the details about 197 SDPOs, SHOs and in-charge investigations have been sought in the first phase.
On the occasion, Sheikh said they would conduct secret investigations about the police officers having assets beyond means. He further said that now onward, no police officer will be allowed field posting without submitting the details of his assets. A circular of assets declaration for the field officers has also been issued. Sheikh further said that the purpose of intelligence reports about the assets of police officers was to introduce check and balance upon them.
He said that this system of check and balance will help improve accountability mechanism of police and its working. Two days back, he had proposed court-martial of police officials as done in the armed forces. While writing to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Inam Ghani, he had asked to move before the government to create the space for court martialing in police department under Article 8 of the Constitution. He highlighted that at least 25%-30% officials of the force were awarded punishments every year according to an analysis of five-year data.
However, the complaint against police by public, media and NGOs were continuously reported against police officials. The CCPO highlighted that as many as 57,318 officials were punished in 2015, 61,422 in 2016, 92,521 in 2017, 82,170 in 2018 and 61,573 officials in 2019. In his letter, he pointed out financial embezzlement in police funds by the officials. He had asserted the officials punished under the ongoing accountability mechanism were granted relief through service tribunal and the appellant courts.
He had also asked the IGP to introduce the system under which no police official once punished would be able to rejoin the force. The moves have also invited criticism from non-PSP officers with the viewpoint that the problem was being fixated only to lower rank officers.
An upper sub-ordinate complained that PSP officers, under the prevalent system enjoyed a through impunity. Even in the process of obeying their orders, the price sometimes even dismissal from the service was paid by the lower cadre officers.
If they refused to obey such orders, they were punished for violating discipline or hierarchy and coerced to do every kind of job. The job was done following hierarchy and the brunt was only faced by the lower cadre police officials.
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