‘List reveals 1,000 corrupt cops in Karachi’

Karachi
Karachi's new police chief says that he has found that around a 1,000 cops in the city are in cahoots with owners of drugs and gambling dens or involved in other illegal activities and steps are being taken to boot them out of the force.
Talking to The News on Sunday, additional IGP Karachi Mushtaq Mehar said inquiry teams were being formed under the supervision of DIGs for taking action against these corrupt policemen.
Initially, around 20 SHOs have been removed from their posts and departmental committees are probing into their involvement in criminal activities.
"When I took charge, I found some irregularities in the department, particularly about policemen's criminal activities including their involvement in running drugs and gambling dens, Mehar said.
He added that before he took over, IGP Sindh Ghulam Hyder Jamali had already formed a committee under the supervision of DIG Aftab Ahmed Pathan to thoroughly investigate and prepare a list of cops who were involved in criminal activities and patronising drugs and gambling dens. The committee was formed about three or four months ago.
The committee chairman had submitted a report to the IGP Sindh a week ago that contained a list of around 4,000 policemen throughout the province who were directly or indirectly involved in illegal activities.
The cops mentioned in the list ranked from DSPs to constables.
Mehar said the list included the names of around a 1,000 policemen in Karachi who ranked from DSPs to constables. The IGP has submitted the report to the apex court and after a hearing, it has directed the provincial police chief to take action against them.
The Karachi police chief said he had recently held a a meeting with his subordinates and discussed the presence of corrupt cops in the department. He added that he had ordered the department's officials to take immediate action against the policemen found involved in criminal activities.
The additional IGP Karachi said the findings of the report were about 70 to 80 percent accurate and more investigation needed to be carried out as it also contained the names of officers who were booked by criminals taking advantage of the Section-22A by submitting an application to the lower courts for the registration of FIR against them.
"It was mostly seen that whenever police raided the dens of criminals, the latter had FIRs registered against the former claiming the raid was illegal," Mehar explained.
"I've instructed DIGs to re-verify the list and exclude those officers who are innocent."
To a query, the Karachi police chief said there would be no shortage of manpower in the department after the removal of corrupt cops from the force as there were more officers awaiting posts in the Police Lines and also the Sindh Reserve Police bases.
"To fill the gap, we're also preparing a list of devoted officers who were never given a chance to become SHOs or SIOs," he added.
Cops removed
Mehar said the process of departmental action against corrupt policemen had started and five SHOs of the City district had been removed from their posts.
They include SHOs of Risala, Eidgah, Kalakot, Napier and Kharadar. However, these officials have just been relieved from their duties as an investigation is pending against them and if they are cleared, they will be reposted to the police stations where they are needed.
The Malir district SSP has also taken action against some officials in his district. Four SHOs in the district have been suspended and ordered to report to their respective headquarters.
They include SHOs Steel Town, Bin Qasim, Quaidabad and Sohrab Goth.
The SSP West too had served show-cause notices to 40 officers in his district, of them 13 have been dismissed, 10 demoted, 10 penalised with a salary reduction and eight given major punishments.