Anti-encroachment drive: 3 police officers allegedly ‘punished’ for being incorrupt

Six land grabbers get bail due to lack of evidence.

KARACHI: Three police officers, who carried out an operation against land grabbers in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, have been allegedly ‘punished’ for not being corrupt by being suspended, demoted and transferred.

On December 12 this year, the anti-encroachment police successfully apprehended six alleged land grabbers, who had occupied 20 acres of public land, officials in the revenue department told The Express Tribune. The occupied land is located near Dubai Palace and was named Mir Khan Gabol Goth.

According to officials, police officers from the anti-encroachment cell (AEC), SP Irfan Bahadur and DSP Taha gave the orders for the operation while SHO Nayyarul Hasan and other revenue department officials carried it out. The police arrested six guards from the land and registered FIR No. 36/2010, dated December 12, 2010 at the AEC police station, said SIO Shahid Qureshi. The FIR was filed on behalf of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town mukhtiarkar Ishaq Gad.

As soon as the FIR was registered the phones started ringing from “influential” people. The officers did not attend the calls and soon enough, orders were issued to remove them from their work.

According to Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town mukhtiarkar Ishaq Gad, the land grabbers had deployed the guards to carry out some work on the land. The guards were released under section 497 of the CrPC, since the mukhtiarkar failed to provide any substantial proof against them. SIO Qureshi said that the mukhtiarkar has yet to give details of the occupied land and the names of the land grabbers so that the police can carry out further investigations.

All police officers involved in this operation were, however, recently suspended, demoted or transferred. To further complicate the case, there seems to be some confusion over who has the jurisdiction to suspend the police working with the AEC. According to one camp, the AEC police station and its officials come under the direct command of AEC director-general Ghulam Ali Pasha, who is also the acting Sindh chief secretary. Pasha, and not the Sindh inspector general of police, has the powers to issue suspension or transfer orders for his department’s officers.

According to another interpretation, Capital City Police Officer Karachi Fayyaz Leghari told The Express Tribune that the Sindh IG of Police has full administrative control over police officers, whether they are posted at the AEC or anywhere else. Leghari maintained that the Sindh IG had not suspended the officers involved in this particular case but the IG had ordered their transfers.

SP Irfan Bahadur has been directed to report to the Capital City Police Office while DSP Taha has been demoted and SHO Nayyarul Hassan have been suspended, an official said on condition of anonymity.

The AEC was set up in consultation with all coalition partners of the government and other stakeholders, such as the provincial government and the law-enforcement agencies. It has the full support of the governor and the chief minister.

The three police officers were deployed at the AEC police station to reclaim encroached land and none of them have been accused of corruption. To date, the AEC managed to recover 2,500 illegally occupied plots but it only started booking the culprits once the police station was formed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2010.