BAHAWALPUR City News

Security at Nandipur power project
110 more cops taken from southern Punjab
From Ameen Abbasi
BAHAWALPUR: Despite grave concerns about terrorism threat in southern Punjab by the police high-ups, the Punjab government has surprisingly taken more 110 cops from southern Punjab for their deployment at Nandipur power project in Gujranwala for two years.
The decision has surprised the people as well as police officers as the southern Punjab police range already faces the shortage of personnel. Sources confided to The News that the Punjab government had earlier asked the Lahore CCPO for cops. “The Lahore CCPO refused to relieve cops, citing shortage of personnel. Later, the Punjab government decided to take cops from southern Punjab, especially from the Bahawalpur region, despite the threats of terrorism,” they said.
The sources revealed that the Bahawalpur police had already deployed over 60 cops for the security of Chinese engineers at the under-construction Quaid-e-Azam Solar Energy Park near Bahawalpur. “It would have been better had the local cops deployed in their range instead of being sent to other regions.” They said that another interesting aspect of the move was that the cops deployed for special security should be between 25 and 35 years according to Police Special Security Protection Rules, but over 40-year-old cops were being deployed for security at Nandipur power project. When contacted to get version of the police high-ups, it was revealed that the Bahawalpur district had been without the DPO for the last three weeks.