IGP told to purge police department of cops working with drug mafia

Lauding the performance of the Sindh police as regards busting notorious gangs of drug dealers and smugglers, the chief minister has directed the IGP to purge the police department of all the black sheep.

“I have reports that some policemen are allegedly working as facilitators for drug dealers, and their presence in the police is detrimental for the reputation of the police service, so they must be combed out and brought to book,” said CM Syed Murad Ali Shah.

The chief executive presided over a meeting on law and order at the CM House on Wednesday. Apart from maintaining law and order, Shah gave special tasks to the police to conduct operations against drug dealers and curb crimes against women, children and minorities.

IGP Mushtaq Mahar briefed the CM that between August 21 and August 31, five cases were registered of crimes against minorities, 22 of crimes against women and nine of crimes against children, as well as 198 cases against trade in contraband and 798 cases against the drug mafia.

The CM was told that in the 798 registered cases of drug trafficking, 879 suspects were arrested. The IGP said the recovery was huge in terms of quantity: 547.851 kilograms of charas, 19.3kg of ice, 10.65kg of heroin, 2.82kg of opium and 17,307 litres of liquor.

The CM was also told that two major gangs of drug traffickers had been busted by arresting their leaders and members. One of the members was an Afghan and the other hailed from Balochistan.

Shah lauded the police for their performance in their operations against the drug mafia, and said that it would also help eliminate street crime because most of the street criminals were connected with the drug mafia. He said he had several intelligence reports claiming that some policemen were working for the drug mafia while some others had become facilitators for them.

The chief executive tasked the Sindh and Karachi police chiefs, as well as the chiefs of different police zones or ranges to open top-level secret inquiries against such policemen and bring them to book.

The IGP told the meeting that 1,961 cases of street crime were reported across the city, of them 236 in the South zone, 1,070 in the East zone and 655 in the West zone.

Shah directed the inspector general of police to ask the zonal chiefs to hold meetings with their SHOs and task them with curbing crimes against women, children and minorities, as well as take action against the drug mafia while effectively maintaining law and order in their respective jurisdictions.

The meeting was also attended by acting chief secretary Qazi Shahid Pervez, CM’s Principal Secretary Sajid Jamal Abro, Counter Terrorism Department chief Ghulam Nabi Mahar, Karachi police chief Imran Minhas, zonal chiefs Umer Shahid, Saqib Ismail, Akbar Riaz, Pir M Shah and Nauman Siddiqui, and CM’s Additional Secretary Fayaz Jatoi.