Department review: Ousted SHO Rana Atif reinstated posthumously

He was murdered by unidentified assailants on November 9

FAISALABAD: Former SHO Rana Atif Mehmood who was shot dead by unidentified assailants has been posthumously reinstated. Last month, the Toba Tek Singh DPO had removed him from service for failure to trace culprits in a bank robbery case.

On Thursday, Regional Police Officer Ehsan Tufail accepted the late police officer’s appeal for regular hearing and set aside the termination orders.

The RPO reinstated Mehmood as a sub inspector.

Mehmood had earlier filed an appeal before the RPO but his appeal had not been accepted for hearing.

On November 9, Mehmood was on his way from a Kabaddi match at the Madina Town Hockey Stadium in Faisalabad in the evening when he was waylaid by two unidentified assailants near the Sant Singh railway crossing in a Mansoorabad police precinct.

The assailants fled leaving their motorcycle on the scene.

On Thursday, police visited the Madina Town Hockey Stadium on special directives of CPO Afzaal Kausar and collected forensic evidence establishing Mehmood’s presence at the stadium and other engagements at the venue before he was killed.

Members of the investigation team probing the incident are Malik Jahangir, Zafar Ora, Waheed Shahid, Mian Abid, Rana Asim, Asim Rasheed and Shahid Sarwar Alvi.

Malik Jahangir, from the team, said they were gathering evidence to establish whether this was a targeted attack.

“We will also gather surveillance camera footage from various department stores and shops along the route Mehmood had taken from the Madina Town Hockey Stadium to the Sant Singh Wala railway crossing.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2015.