KARACHI: A few days after senior police officers from the province were transferred under a rotation policy of the establishment division in order to rotate the officials after completion of 10-year period in a province or region, Sindh’s police department witnessed a massive reshuffling.
According to the notification, Sharjeel Kharal and Muqaddas Haider have been posted as deputy inspector generals (DIGs) for East and South respectively.
In other postings, Syed Khurram Ali was appointed as DIG Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Tariq Abbas Qureshi as DIG Sukkur, Karim Khan as DIG Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) Karachi, and Sultan Ahmed Chaudhry as DIG Special Branch.
Moreover, Muhammad Zubair has been posted as DIG Headquarters, Shahzad Akbar as DIG Establishment and Abdul Hameed Sanjrani as DIG Training.
The appointments came after top police officers from the province were transferred to other provinces from the establishment division, leading to a row between the Centre and the Sindh province.
While raising objections to the transfers, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the prime minister should consult over the transfer of provincial officials as per the law. “The officers should be transferred as per law that requires consultation between the Centre and the province,” he said while referring to a law passed in 2020.
He shared that article 240 states that the officers could perform their duties in the centre and the provinces. “We want the prime minister to review transfer of officials,” he said adding that he was never consulted regarding the rotation policy of the officials.
However, the prime minister refused to entertain any disapproval over the transfers from both the Sindh and Punjab provinces and directed them to implement a uniform policy of rotation of the officers.
Earlier, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government had rotated several police officers of DIG rank in January and June under the same policy that was first introduced in 2000 to provide all the officers an opportunity to serve across the federating units.
Later, it was replaced by Rotation Policy 2020 under the Civil Servants Act, 1973, so that rotation of officers among various governments becomes an unavoidable undertaking in which creation of exceptions is minimised. The policy was finalised after consultation with all the governments.
