Police dept desperate to fill 500 ASI posts
By S. Raza Hassan
KARACHI, March 29: Recruitment for assistant sub-inspectors in the Sindh police has not taken place for the last six years, though there are 500 vacancies and a greater need for ASIs, it has been learnt.
Only recently the Sindh police moved the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) to initiate the process for hiring of ASIs.
As the process is time-consuming, if it is initiated soon enough, it will take at least a year or a year-and-a-half to complete, officials in the Sindh government said.
Sources in the Sindh police said 250 vacancies for ASIs existed in Karachi alone, with as many in the rest of the province.
Capital City Police Chief Waseem Ahmed told Dawn that Provincial Police Officer Babar Khattak had sent a formal request to the SPSC for recruiting 500 ASIs.
SPSC officials will look at their calendar and accordingly place advertisements in newspapers. Considering the rampant unemployment, for 250 seats around 5,000 applications are expected, observers said.
“Sorting out and conducting examinations will definitely consume well over a year,” a senior police officer said.
“For the last six years no hiring of ASIs has taken place in the province, which is adding to the existing dearth of manpower in the police force,” the city police chief commented.
Officials said the last recruitment for ASIs through the SPSC took place in 2002, when around 450 men were inducted into the force. Most of them were graduates and even postgraduates. Some eventually left the force after not finding the environment up to their expectations, an officer said.
The Police Order 2002 says: “The recruitment in the police other than ministerial and specialist cadres shall be in the ranks of constables, assistant sub-inspectors and assistant superintendents of police”.
It further says that selection for direct recruitment in the rank of assistant sub-inspectors shall be through the appropriate public service commission and shall not exceed 25 per cent of the total posts in that rank.
The police order also says that the recruitment in the rank of assistant superintendents of police shall be through the Federal Public Service Commission on an all-Pakistan basis.
Officials said that during the last six years a request was sent by a former PPO of Sindh to the SPSC for ASIs’ recruitment and advertisements were even placed in the press, but a controversy regarding the commission’s former chairman came up, which caused the entire process to be rolled back.
Plagued by the shortage of strength, the Karachi police will find the 250 ASIs a valuable addition to its force.
“The induction of fresh blood into the force on a regular basis is a must for better policing in the city,” the city police chief remarked.
However, some officials were of the opinion that hiring of ASIs could not be carried out strictly on merit in Sindh, where political considerations reign supreme.
Consuming considerable time, the recruitment of police constables was completed recently by the Karachi police. The lists of successful candidates were displayed at different police offices in the city.
This reporter tried to get the version of the SPSC to find out the status of the process by leaving a message, but the call was not returned by the SPSC secretary’s office.
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