Punjab gets 7th police chief in three years

The federal government has approved the appointment of Rao Sardar Ali Khan as the new chief of Punjab Police in a notification issued by the Establishment Division on Tuesday.

The newly-appointed inspector general police (IGP) was performing duties as the head of Punjab Safe City Authority in Lahore before his appointment as the provincial police chief.

Sardar Ali Khan, who hails from Lodhran, is considered among the “best" professional and experienced officers of the Pakistan Police Service. He joined the police service in 1990 as the assistant superintendent of police (ASP).

Over the course of his 30-year-long career, IG Sardar Ali Khan has served as Punjab Welfare and Finance’s Additional IG and Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) AIG.He has also held the posts of SDPO Samhari, Jaffarabad and Ferozwala.

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After promotion to the rank of superintendent police (SP), he served as SP in Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Rahim Yar Khan, Special Branch, Chakwal and Mianwali. He was later transferred to Islamabad after having served as AIG Development and AIG Logistics.

He has also served as the Lahore DIG Operations, Faisalabad CPO, Sargodha RPO and Bahawalpur RPO.

In addition to this, the new police chief has also worked in the Intelligence Bureau for at least five years. He has also served in the UN Mission for eight months and in Australia for two years.

It may be noted here that the Punjab government led by Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has changed six police chiefs since coming to power in 2018. The IGPs appointed before the incumbent included Inam Ghani, Shoaib Dastagir, Arif Nawaz Khan, Amjad Javed Saleemi, Muhammad Tahir and Dr Syed Kaleem Imam.

• Kaleem Imam: Imam was serving as the police chief of Punjab when the Buzdar government came at the helm. He served as the IGP for three months from June 13, 2018 to September 11, 2018.
• Muhammad Tahir: Tahir replaced Imam as the Punjab Police head on September 11, 2018. He, however, remained the IGP for one month only. He was removed from the post on October 15, 2018. In protest against the removal, the head of the Punjab Commission for Police Reforms, Nasir Khan Durrani, also stepped down.
• Amjad Javed Saleemi: Saleemi served as Punjab IGP from October 15, 2018, to April 17, 2019. He was replaced by Arif Nawaz Khan.
• Arif Nawaz Khan: Capt (r) Arif Nawaz Khan served as the fourth police chief of Punjab from April 17, 2019, to November 28, 2019. His tenure was cut short after the Punjab government appointed Shoaib Dastgir to head the police.
• Shoaib Dastgir: Dastgir headed the Punjab Police from November 28, 2019, to November 9, 2020. He was removed from the post after he demanded the removal of Umar Sheikh from the post of Lahore police chief.
• Inam Ghani: Ghani replaced Dastgir as the Punjab IG. He served as the police chief of Punjab for eight months before being removed by the Buzdar government.