close
Tuesday March 19, 2024

Sacked cops end protest after govt vows sympathetic response

By our correspondents
August 17, 2017

Several dismissed cops of the Sindh Reserve Police (SRP) detained on Wednesday during their protest rally were shortly released after the provincial government agreed to review the matter of their dismissals.

Around 250 dismissed cops gathered at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) to march towards the CM House. The protesters were among those SRP cops who were recruited by former IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali during 2012 to 2015, but the incumbent police chief, AD Khowaja, dismissed thousands of policemen after an inquiry committee, which was constituted on a Supreme Court’s directive, said in its report that former police officers had accepted huge bribes for hiring the SRP cops.

In light of the committee’s recommendations, the apex court had ordered dismissing hundreds of illegally appointed policemen of the SRP and other units. The sacked cops launched a protest campaign against IGP Khowaja, who had removed them from their service in accordance with the SC orders.

However, IGP Khowaja formed a committee in January 2017 to examine the cases of policemen dismissed because of their illegal appointments. He formed a ‘Centralised Re-examination Committee’ on the directives of the apex court to conduct an eligibility test of the cops again.

The committee re-examined the eligibility of the cops and enrolled only those who passed the test. At their protest rally on Wednesday, as the demonstrators moved towards the CM House to stage a protest, a heavy contingent of police baton-charged the cops and arrested several of them.

The protesters were holding banners and placards inscribed with slogans against their dismissals. They were demanding of the provincial government to intervene in the matter for the restoration of their jobs.

Talking to The News, Lyari SP Aftab Nizamani said some of the demonstrators were shifted to Baghdadi and Kalakot police stations for a brief time.

Saddar SP Tauqeer Muhammad Naeem told The News that the police took into custody protesters for a short period of time and transported them back to the KPC after the protest ended. He stated that the provincial government had assured the demonstrators of reviewing the matter of their dismissals.