ISLAMABAD: Late Saturday was a dull day for him, not the evening though. He received a call from Chief Minister Punjab's Office.
The caller asked him to appear for an interview at the 8-Club Road. The PTI government was to appoint new District Police Officers and Deputy Commissioners. The officer was very excited. He had heard the speeches of Imran Khan wherein he vowed to depoliticise the bureaucracy once in power. Also heartening was what he came to know about the conditions set forth by Nasir Durrani before Imran Khan for assuming the charge of Inspector General Police (IGP) KP in 2014.
Durrani, he was told, had presented three demands: 1) no political interference in transfer/postings of police; 2) no pressure to transfer an officer in the event of any crisis and that only he will decide after proper probe to determine if there is any negligence on part of the police; and 3) he will have to travel far and wide in KP hence needed a helicopter. Imran had accepted all the conditions without any objections. Only thing he demanded in return was depoliticised police.
So the man and the moment have come in the form of PTI government, the officer reminded himself. The incidents of disgraceful removal of IGP Punjab and DPO Pakpattan came to his mind but he thought there might be no recurrence. He purged his mind of cynicism, got ready in the morning and reached the 8-Club Road at 11am on late Sunday.
There he found more than 30 officers of Police Service and as many of District Management Group. They were put on wait for hours before the interviews started. As he was summoned in the interview room, the presence of chief minister Punjab was a rude shock for him. The chief secretary and secretary to the CM were also there. For the interviews of DPOs, the IGP and home secretary were accompanying the CM.
This was not for the first time. He had appeared in the past before CM Shahbaz Sharif for posting interview. The former CM was rightly criticised for usurping the power of Chief Secretary and IGP but the PTI government hadn’t turned different.
The presence of the CM meant he was the deciding authority, not the chief secretary who should be the real boss, according to the rules. Holding control on transfer/posting is a key instrument of political bosses to run the affairs at their whim by influencing bureaucracy.
During the course of interviews, the CM was calling the shots asking interviewees about their past performance and the places of posting. That’s it. Once the process was over, the officers were allowed to leave.
Some of you will receive calls in a few hours, they were told. The recipients of the call were invited for another meeting with the CM at night. They were served hi-tea unlike the austerity claims of the PTI government made in the beginning.
This followed a meeting with the CM Usman Buzdar. The officers thought they will be instructed to perform their job without fear or favor, do proper policing, focus on improving public education and health. However, the instructions they received were quite baffling instead.
“You will have to keep our MPAs happy. This is very important for us. There must not be any complaint against you from them,” the CM said as he met with the officers in small groups in a separate room. While the newly-appointed DPOs and DCs are required to keep treasury MPAs happy, the instructions for the opposition MPAs were contrary. “(unko officer bun kar dikhain (make them realise your power),” they were told and they understood what he meant.
Shehbaz Gill, the spokesperson of CM Punjab, however, denied this impression. Interviews have not been conducted by the CM, he said talking to The News. Instead, he has had only tea with the officers. Their postings had been notified by the time he met with them on tea. However, The News checked with many interviewees and they confirmed having been interviewed by the CM. Regarding instructions to officers that keep the treasury MPAs happy, the spokesperson said he didn't think the CM said so. "CM asked them to spare two hours (10am-12am) for listening to public complaints. As MPAs have been complaining against unfriendly behavior of bureaucracy with the public, the CM might have meant that if public is happy, then MPAs will also be happy."
As the officer returned home after the realities of ‘Naya Pakistan’ dawned on him, Ustad Mangu of Tangawala was in his mind. Mangu was a character of Saadat Hasan Mantu’s short story “The New Constitution.” The story written in pre-Partition days of Sub-continent portrays Mangu as a character in the habit of overhearing his passengers, most of them lawyers.
Once, he overheard that a new constitution was in the offing that would rid him of Englishmen he hated. The new constitution was to be introduced on April 1 for which he waited impatiently. On that ‘eventful’ day, he got up early in the morning, found a gora soldier as a passenger and engaged in a quarrel and beat him, which landed Mangu in the custody of police. He kept telling the police that don’t mind his beating of the gora as the constitution had changed. The policemen nevertheless locked him and told him that nothing had changed and it was the same old constitution.
