Lahore-Thursday’s gun attack on the PTI chief Imran Khan and other party leaders at Wazirabad has laid bare the inadequate security arrangements taken by the Punjab police for the much-hyped mega political event which had visible security threats from the day it started from Lahore last week.
presence of armed men around Imran Khan’s container carrying PTI’s top leadership has also raised questions about the professional competence of the Punjab police which had deployed over 2100 policemen to provide security to the participants of the protest march.
Even more worrisome is the fact that police did not take adequate security measures despite having prior information of a possible murder attack on the PTI chairman and other party leaders. A day before, a local PTI leader Ahmad Hussain Chatha had informed the concerned DPO and the district administration about an intelligence information leading to an anticipated assassination attempt on the life of PTI chairman. Senior PTI leader Ejaz Ahmad Ch had shared this information with Mr Chatha though the latter had also claimed to have got such information in a conversation with the former.
Ejaz Ch had confirmed to The Nation on Thursday that this information sharing took place between him and Hussain Chatha on Wednesday night at around 10 pm.
Also, DPO Gujranwala had received a threat letter on November 1 from intelligence agencies about a possible attack on the long march. But despite having all this information, the police did not install bullet proof sheets in front of the container, leaving the entire PTI leadership fully exposed to any attack from the crowd from all directions.
It was against this backdrop that PTI leaders in a meeting on Friday expressed dissatisfaction over the security arrangements taken by the Punjab police for the safety of the party leaders. They demanded removal of the Punjab IGP Faisal Shahkar holding him responsible for the poor security cover provided to the leaders.
It may be mentioned here that Punjab police chief Faisal Shahkar has recently been selected as Police advisor to the United Nations and is being widely acclaimed by colleagues, friends, and relatives for this achievement. He is most likely to assume his new assignment in a week or so.
Meanwhile, DPO Gujrat Syed Ghazanfar Shah Friday said that it was not possible for the police to physically check every person taking part in the long march. Talking to the media, he said that walk-through gates could not be installed to check the people in a moving procession of people like the long march. He said people would move freely in a protest march like this and it was not humanly possible to keep an eye on all of them.