ISLAMABAD     -    The federal government has appointed Faisal Shahkar as the new Inspector-General (IG) of Punjab on Friday after IGP Rao Sardar refused to continue working on this position.

A notification in this regard was issued by the Establishment Division in which it was stated that with the approval of the Federal Government, Faisal Shahkar, a BS-22 Officer of Police Service of Pakistan, is posted as Provincial Police Officer (PPO) Punjab.  Shahkar was earlier serving as Inspector General, Pakistan Railways Police (PRP) under the Ministry of Railways. The newly-appointed police chief joined the Pakistan Police Service as the assistant superintendent of police in 1988.

He served as the additional inspector general at the Special Branch in Punjab and considered as a trustworthy police officer of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.  He also served in the United Nations’ special missions in Bosnia and Liberia among other countries.

Earlier on Friday, it was reported in a section of media that IGP Punjab Rao Sardar and Chief Secretary Punjab Kamran Ali Afzal had requested the provincial government to place them on the disposal of the federal government.  Later, IG Rao Sardar was replaced with Shahkar and he was appointed as IG Pakistan Railways Police.  It is pertinent to mention here that the former chief of Punjab police was on the target of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Muslim League-Q as both felt themselves aggrieved with the treatment of police in recent months during the tenure of Hamza Shehbaz Sharif.

After the success in by-elections, the leadership of PTI also went hard on the officers and threatened to grill them once their chief minister is in placed in the province. PTI had also formulated a committee to ascertain the role of police and administration in sabotaging the recent long march announced by Imran Khan on Islamabad.