LAHORE    -   The current tug of war be­tween the Centre and Pun­jab over the transfer of CCPO Lahore Ghulam Mhamood Dogar has further intensi­fied after some details of the latter’s meeting with the PTI chairman Imran Khan have come to surface. The CCPO Lahore Ghulam Mehmood Dogar had on last Wednes­day held a meeting with the PTI Chairman Imran Khan in the presence of some provin­cial ministers to assure his allegiance to the PTI’s pro­vincial government in Pun­jab. The PTI chairman told him that he could continue working with Punjab as long as he felt comfortable. 

The ex-PM also lauded CCPO’s role in the registera­tion of FIRs against the two PMLN leaders Javaid Latif and Maryam Aurangzeb in terrorism cases. Ghulam Mehmood Dogar reportedly told Imran Khan that he tried to arrest a PTI defector and now MPA on the PM-N ticket Asad Khokhar, but he man­aged to take a flight abroad. CCPO Lahore, however, said that his meeting with Imran Khan was a routine meet­ing in which he congratu­lated the ex-PM on his 70th birthday. Following this de­velopment, the federal gov­ernment wrote yet another letter to the Punjab govern­ment seeking repatriation of the Lahore CCPO. 

According to the sources, the letter sent by the feder­ation to the Punjab govern­ment states that an inquiry has to be initiated against the CCPO Lahore Ghulam Mahmood Dogar on certain complaints, so he should be relieved from the province and his services must be re­patriated to Establishment Division with immediate ef­fect.

Punjab government has once again rejected the fed­eral government’s letters to relieve CCPO Lahore Ghulam Mehmood Dogar from the province. The Punjab gov­ernment has told the federa­tion in a letter to send the complaints against the CCPO Lahore, and the Provincial government will investigate the matter through inquiry. The current tug of war be­tween the Centre and Punjab over repatriation of officers has its roots in May 25 inci­dents involving torture and arrests of the PTI workers during the long march. 

Immediately after the es­tablishment of the PTI gov­ernment in Punjab as a re­sult of court orders, the PTI leaders had indicated that those officers involved in the violence against PTI workers will be taken to task. 

In this regard, the task was given to CCPO Lahore Ghulam Mahmood Dogar to take action against the of­ficers and politicians of PML-N who were involved in torturing the workers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. Besides this, the CCPO was given the instructions that he should take action against MNAs and political leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz by registering cases against them. 

Following these instruc­tions, cases were registered against many PML-N leaders from Punjab, along with FIRs against federal ministers Javed Latif and Maryam Au­rangzeb. In this background, the federal government de­cided that the services of CCPO Lahore should be with­drawn from Punjab whereas the Punjab government has been resisting this move for the last couple of weeks. 

If the Punjab government does not relieve the services of CPO Lahore, the federal government has the author­ity to initiate departmental inquiry against the CCPO Lahore. eanwhile, Punjab Chief Secretary Kamran Af­zal’s one week leave expired on October 7 (Friday), but no new notification about extension in leave was is­sued till filing of this report on late Friday. Chairman P&D Abdullah Sumbal was given charge of the post of chief secretary for the sec­ond time on September 30. Sources said that the federal government will post a new chief secretary in Punjab af­ter the by-elections which will end after October 16.