The Inspector General of the Punjab police has stepped down from his post, saying there was ‘too much political interference’ and that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s recent remarks about the police were ‘offensive’.
The development is said to have come after Punjab IG Faisal Shahkar got into an altercation with Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi on Saturday regarding the matter of registering an FIR about the attack on PTI chief Imran Khan.
According to Dawn News, the IG told the chief minister that there had been too much ‘political interference’ from the provincial government. He complained that the government was ‘directly making postings across the province without consulting the IG, and contacting the RPOs and DPOs to get the decisions it wanted’.
He also took offense to PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s recent political address where he had called out the IG, over the delay in the registration of the FIR against the attack on former prime minister Imran Khan last Thursday.
Qureshi on Sunday had said at a rally in Lahore, “IG Punjab, if you couldn’t gather courage to get the FIR lodged through your DPO and SHO, then I send laanat (curse) on your uniform,” urging the IG to resign if he cannot get the FIR registered.
The police chief told the CM that the ‘hateful remarks’ made by Qureshi were unacceptable, and submitted a request to Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to withdraw his services from the province.
