Warning triggers concerns among top cops

PESHAWAR: The warning of the chief minister-elect and lawmakers to withdraw cases against their leaders and workers registered over the last nine months has triggered concerns among the officers of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police.

Apart from police, the Anti-Corruption Establishment and the district administration were warned in recent weeks against lodging cases and issuing 3 MPO orders against the workers and leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in a bid to pressurize them to quit the party.

The newly elected Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur in his first speech on the floor of the house ordered the police to withdraw all the fake cases against the PTI workers and leaders lodged after May 9 last year.

The CM-elect has given one-week time to the officers concerned for quashing all the fake cases against PTI leaders and workers. He continued that if it was not done and the officials did not reform themselves they should be ready for punishment.

Hundreds of workers of PTI were charged in different cases by the police and ACE after the May 9 violence last year. Many were also charged under MPO. It was learnt that leadership has directed to compile the details of all such cases so these can be taken up at the proper forum after the one-week deadline to the officers concerned.

Few of the PTI leaders were mentioned in multiple FIRs in KP and Punjab during this time, forcing them to go into hiding for months. These PTI leaders only resurfaced after they were elected to the parliament in the February 8 polls.

Before Ali Amin Gandapur, two newly elected lawmakers of the PTI had warned the police and other departments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over lodging fake cases and conducting frequent raids on their houses.

The newly elected MNA from Lakki Marwat, Sher Afzal Marwat, had said they would ask these police officers to prove the charges in the lodged cases or they would have to face action. He even hinted at sending some senior police officers, including three regional and seven district police officers, to jail once the PTI came to power.

According to Sher Afzal, the cops were involved in injustice against the PTI workers and leaders. He said they kept warning these officers to stop misusing the power but they continued lodging cases against PTI.

A former federal minister who was elected MNA from Kohat, Shehryar Afridi, warned the deputy superintendent of police, station house officers and the district administrative officers to tighten their belts.

All these speeches and warnings are being discussed on social media as well as within the police force of the province. The recent transfer of a district police officer from KP to Islamabad was also discussed by many on social media. Few of them termed it the beginning of the transfer of officers from the province who were involved in lodging false cases and raiding homes of the PTI workers.

Some reports suggested that more senior and junior officers are likely to be reshuffled and removed from important positions for their alleged involvement in raids, misbehaving with PTI leaders, workers and their families and lodging cases against them.