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Dearth of officers: Crisis in KP police deepens with more transfers

By Javed Aziz Khan
January 18, 2018

PESHAWAR: Already facing acute shortage of officers, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is fast losing senior cops who manage to seek transfer out of the province, a source told The News.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was already short of 57 percent officers from grade-18 to grade-21, but the percentage is rising as more senior cops have left during the last few weeks.

The province will need at least 30 more officers in grade-18 and 19 if the police force was deployed in Fata in case it was merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

“A former capital city police officer Ijaz Ahmad, former district police officer Swabi, Mohammad Sohaib Ashraf and former senior superintendent of police Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Fazal Hamid recently managed their transfer out of the province.

The transfer orders of two more officers, AIG Establishment Ahsan Saifullah and SSP CTD Furqan Bilal have already been issued,” a source told The News.

The source added that a deputy inspector general of police who was transferred to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Punjab has been able to get his transfer delayed. Besides, another DIG and few SPs from the province are looking to be posted out of KP. “Some officers who were posted in smaller districts also feel ignored after their juniors were given better posting,” said the source.

In case of further transfers of senior officers out of KP, the crisis will deepen, leaving the KP Police at the mercy of juniors.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last month approved a policy to post deputy superintendents of police, who are in grade 17 as DPOs due to dearth of officers in senior grades.

“The provincial police had only 48 officers of the sanctioned 113 positions for the Police Service of Pakistan from grade-18 to 21. The recent transfers and the expected ones will further deepen the crises,” said the source.

The source added that currently there were only five officers of grade 19 and 18 in the pool for the DPOs in the entire province.

They included Asif Iqbal, Rabnawaz Khan, Ali Akbar Shah, Dr Zahidullah Khan and Malik Imran.

“There are a number of officers from KP recruited through Provincial Civil Service who are currently serving outside the province. The posting of competent and honest officers from among these PCS cops as regional police officers and DPOs can help overcome the shortage,” the source added.

More than 20 senior police officers of KP are suffering after being placed too junior in seniority in the PSP. They have been fighting cases for over 10 years. Only a single officer from the PCS is currently posted in KP as DPO while the majority is of those promoted from lower ranks.

“The province is also short of additional IGs for long to assist the IGP at the police headquarters, Special Branch and in other important fields,” said the source.

The shortage of officers in grade-21 is currently 80 percent as the force have a single officer in the grade against the sanctioned strength of five.

The shortage of grade-20 deputy inspectors general is 26 percent as KP has 14 officers of the sanctioned 19 seats. Similarly, there are 14 senior superintendents of police in grade-19 in the province against 35 sanctioned positions.

This amounts to a shortage of 60 percent. The requirement is higher in grade-18 where KP has only 19 officers against the sanctioned 54 positions of SPs. Most of the SPs are given shoulder promotions to run their respective offices.

The KP Police have been demanding the ‘Hard Area’ status for the province like Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan for long but it was never paid any heed by the Centre. The law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtun-khwa remained the worst compared to other provinces during the last many years, but it was never declared a ‘Hard Area’ by the federal government.