Khawaja offers to leave post due to difficult circumstances

Author: PPI

KARACHI: Sindh Inspector General of Police (IGP) AD Khawaja on Wednesday told the Sindh High Court (SHC) that under the present circumstances doing his job had become very difficult and he offers to leave his post.

Khawaja’ counsel Advocate Shahab Osto on behalf of his client submitted an application seeking the court’s order to allow the IGP to relinquish his charge and his services be surrendered to the federal government.

Osto argued before the divisional bench that the uncertainty surrounding Khawaja’s appointment was increasingly telling on the morale and efficiency of the police force. “The ranks and officers were showing the strains of having to adjust with the episodic removal and reinstatement of the IGP,” he added.

The SHC bench headed by Justice Munib Akhtar refused to let Khawaja relinquish his post and extended its stay on Khawaja’s removal as provincial police chief till the next hearing.

In the last hearing of the case, the government of Sindh’s Advocate General Barrister Zamir Ghumro had complained that this was the first time in judicial history that a “senior police officer” (Sardar Abdul Majeed Dasti) had been forced to worked under a “junior officer” (AD Khawaja) because of the SHC’s insistence on seeing the case through.

The provincial government through a notification on March 31 surrendered the services of AD Khawaja to the federal government and appointed Additional IG Sardar Abdul Majeed Dasti, a grade-21 officer, as acting IG.

Following the notification, the civil rights campaigners Karamat Ali, Shehzad Roy, Nazim Fida Hussain Haji, Orangi Pilot Project Research & Training Institute, Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research and others have approached the SHC through their lawyer Faisal Siddiqui and requested it initiate the contempt proceedings against the government official for flaying its orders.

The issue came in light in December last year when Khawaja was sent on forced leave by the government reportedly after they developed differences over an action against people having connections with the co-chairperson of Pakistan People’s Party, Asif Ali Zardari.

On April 6, the SHC bench had passed an interim order directing Khawaja to continue his duty as provincial police chief and since then it is being extended by the court.