Six senior police officers have been asked to explain why they attended an iftar at the American Consulate without permissions from higher authorities, while the officers themselves have expressed shock at the attention the case is getting.
Neebla Gazanfar, the director of public relations at the Punjab Police Headquarters, said all six officers had been served notices and given three days to respond.
All six would be summoned to the inspector general’s (IG) office to explain their actions.
One of the police officers said he had been to events at the American Consulate before and was surprised that Inspector General Javed Iqbal had sought an explanation.
The six officers are Deputy Inspector General (DIG) (Training) Arif Nawaz, Superintendent of Police (SP) (VVIP security) Waqas Hassan, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) (Administration) Tariq Abass, Headquarters SP Romail Akram, SSP Major Nasrullah and 1Elite Training Director Captain Shehar Yar.
SP Akram said that the matter had been blown out of proportion. He said officers had met with embassy personnel in the past. “The issue is being highlighted for no sane reason,” he said.
Another of the officers said that he did not see reason for an inquiry into the matter. “The officers regularly have meetings with embassy officials so I don’t see what was so special about their iftar,” he said. At a meeting separately on Thursday, DIG (Operations) Ghulam Mehmood Dogar, answering a query about the consulate soiree, said that he had given the officers verbal permission to attend the event, which was aimed at improving the relationship between the police and American consulates, he added.
The police did not make clear what rules the six men were accused of violating, but a legal expert told The Express Tribune that Section 5(4) of the Government Servants Conduct Rules 1964 prohibited government servants from accepting gifts from representatives of foreign government and an iftar dinner, he said, counted as a gift.
He said that the officials could be prosecuted under the Punjab Employees Efficiency and Discipline Act and punished with the cessation of their increments or termination of their contracts.
He said usually the first step taken against officers who violated the rule was that their increments were stopped.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 12th, 2011.
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@uzair: You wrote "your govt". So am I to assume you are not Pakistani? No wonder you are so confused! Let me explain things to you. In Pakistan the Police are the most corrupt of all. Corruption runs right through the ranks of the police force. It goes all the way to the top. Since you love the Americans so much let me point out to you that even the US controlled World Bank has acknowledged in its reports that the Police are the most corrupt institution in Pakistan.
Now as to the question of whether dinner constitutes a bribe or not well it obviously does as you can see by the interest shown by the IG in this matter. Bribes come in all shapes and sizes. Small bribes are also bribes. And when its a foreign govt. doing the bribing then its a form of treason to accept IMO.
@abdussamad: bribery for what?? i mean i am simply disgusted at the way you look at things? have you heard by any chance that a very senior police official took "food" as a bribery,you people seriously need to grow up,that was just a dinner and even people with highly corrupt reputation have never sell themselves for a "meal", Sir if you hate america soo much then ask your govt to get rid of america and shut their embassies and consulates in pakistan
@uzair: The cost of a "cordial relationship" with traffic policemen, govt. bureaucrats and other public sector employees in Pakistan is a little chai paani. Is that not bribery? So is this dinner at a foreign embassy of a country that attacks Pakistan every day via drones.
Having dinner at a foreign embassy is obviously a form of corruption. In fact it's more than that. It's a form of treason!
Petty harassment by a petty nation. Grow up!
i see no reason whatsoever to waste time on these small issues,which have nothing to do with the rules or whatever,it was just an aftar party ,they haven't sell themselves like the army generals and our politicians
"An iftar dinner counted as a gift." Brilliant! Maybe because they took some home.