Daily Times

It has been over three years now, the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) police has yet failed to pay over Rs975 million to families of its staffers martyred or deceased during service as the department has no funds for this purpose, Daily Times has learnt reliably.

According to the available documents submitted by the Ministry of Interior at a Parliamentary Committee the payments are pending from 2018 onwards. While the government has not enough funds to clear these millions of rupees outstanding dues to these bereaved families.

As per law, there are certain sorts of compensation to be paid to the family of a government servant in case he/she dies during service. And special amounts are allocated for such grieved families of such servants, who are enlisted with some forces’ institutions, martyrs during accomplishment of their official tasks. The document reads that such amounts are named as enhancement, compensation, education expense, payment for plot and mirage grant.

The documents stated that the Ministry of Interior has to pay over Rs975.3 million to the families of passing away personnel of the police in aforementioned heads. As per documents of the Ministry of Interior, the total of 819 cases is pending with the ICT police department to close for payable amounts to the concerned families. These cases are included as enhancement, compensation, education expense, payment for plot and mirage grant.

The amount of over Rs44.5 million are payable for 127 cases of enhancement, over Rs25 million are to be paid to 163 families as compensation, around Rs11 million outstanding for 353 such families as education expenditures, over Rs65 million for 154 families for payment as cost of plot and 22 families are still looking for over Rs1 million as marriage grant.

Most of the pending payments included families of constables, head-constables, ASIs, Sub Inspectors, Inspectors, LDCs, UDCs, Sweepers and Gardeners. According to the documents, the list of the said strength includes around 500 constables, around 400 ASIs and Sub Inspectors and around 350 Inspectors.

Newly appointed Inspector General of the Federal Capital Police Ahsan Younis, however, soon after resuming charge has held a meeting with some police officials of the department who got any kind of injuries during performance of their duties. As per official statement, he assured the personnel that he would work for the enhancement of workers’ welfare.

However, the statement mentioned no quotes of the IG regarding compensations to the families of late officials of his department.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed last month confessed on the floor of the house that the ministry is facing funds deficiencies to clear these outstanding amounts. Recently, Sheikh Rashid addressing a ceremony claimed that worth Rs47 million are being dispersed among the families of martyred personnel through cheques.

He also maintained that the government was taking sincere steps to improve the professional capabilities of the capital police, adding that the police were a frontline force and it was necessary to keep their morale high. The under process plan for the recruitment of 2,000 new officials in Islamabad police was also hinted by the minister on the occasion.

When contacted, Interior Ministry Spokesperson Ali Nawaz expressed ignorance over the issue and said that he will respond after getting updates from relevant authorities. However, he didn’t respond till the filing of this news story.