Crackdown on corruption in Islamabad Police soon

Islamabad: A comprehensive crackdown against corruption in police will be initiated soon following huge reshuffle in different levels in the department, sources disclosed. Inspector General of Police (Islamabad) Sultan Azam Temuri when contacted, confirmed the report.

Having done away with the ceremonies and exchange of pleasantries, the new Inspector-General of Islamabad Police, Sultan Azam Temuri, has set himself an almost impossible task to achieve! Side by side with improving policing in the federal capital, IG Temuri is ambitious to turn the Islamabad Police into a ‘corruption free’ institution.

It has been learnt that the new IGP Islamabad has already issued directions for pin-pointing the officials with stained, or better said, ‘smeared’ service records in Islamabad Police and has made his intentions clear to get rid of such elements.

It was learnt that IGP Temuri has the nod from the Interior Minister Prof. Ahsan Iqbal to launch this ‘clean-up operation’ within the Islamabad Police. It would neither be an easy task nor a pleasant one and he is in full realisation of the fact.

There are many a glaring facts which clearly indicate the kind of corruption rampaging in Islamabad Police but the ‘Bosses’, both in the Police department as well as those sitting in the ministry or even ‘higher up’, have always cast a blind eye to this matter.

Mainly not to open a ‘Pandora Box’ which would become too difficult to deal with or too hot to hold on to! But this time IGP Temuri seems to made a resolve and has decided to take a plunge, headlong, into this mess of corruption to clean it up.

It is hardly a secret that a large number of officials in Islamabad Police, all ranks, are either themselves involved in criminal acts or have been patronising criminals. Be those the drug barons or lowly placed ‘drug pushers’, the ‘car lifting gangs’ the ‘qabza mafias’, and many other gangs involved in organised crimes.

There are others who are involved in departmental corruption, including embezzlement of funds, misuse of funds and abuse of authority. The IGP Temuri can simply start with an inquiry into the embezzlement of funds released by the Federal Government to Islamabad Police for dealing with the ‘sit-in at Faizabad’. This scribe has learnt that the federal government released Rs90.5 million only for food and water for the force especially deployed during all that period, which probably lasted a little over a month, counting from the start of deployment to the time the last ‘jawan’ boarded a bus to get back to his normal duty.

But some credible sources in the police department allege that not even half of that amount was spent on provision of food, water and tea to the force deployed throughout this time. They allege that some officials have become ‘very rich’ from this ‘dharna’.

“Those responsible for providing food to ‘jawans’ engaged the cooks from market who would cook the cheapest food like plain rice and lintel or chapatti, which was served to the ‘jawans’ that was hardly enough for them. That was why we always saw groups of policemen going to the small local hotels to eat food or drink tea,” the sources in Islamabad Police said.

“The new IG should, first of all, launch an inquiry into this latest act of departmental corruption, which he would not find much difficult to probe and reveal the truth and facts,” the sources said.

This would, indeed, be a good case for the new IGP Islamabad to start with if he actually means to make Islamabad Police a ‘corruption free’ institution. There is yet another massive case of corruption brewing just under the surface in the Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP). Huge amounts of money, collected by the ITP through traffic violation fines, runs into hundreds of millions every year.

Under the laid down rules, 50 per cent of the fine collected was to go to the government kitty, while out of the rest of 50 per cent, 25 per cent was supposed to be spent on infrastructure/facilities of ITP and 25 per cent was supposed to be distributed among the staff on duty.

Evidently, the 50 per cent retained by the ITP for its infrastructure/facilities development and for the staff has not been utilised appropriately. This makes yet another fit case for investigation for the new IGP of Islamabad. In addition to these two major issues needing instant attention, the IGP Temuri will continue to look into the records or those officials and officers who do not enjoy a reputation fit for a member of the Islamabad Police force.