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.