Two NHMP patrolling officers suspended for violating SOP.

TAXILA -- The National Highways and Motorway Police (NHMP) sector commander suspended two Taxila circle patrolling officers on Wednesday for violating standard operating procedure for checking vehicles and issuing tickets, and ordered a departmental inquiry against them.

The two officers were found to have established 'nakas' or check points on the G.T. Road near Wah Garden and involved unauthorised individuals to stop vehicles, particularly trucks, dumpers and trailers, and fine them on various pretexts.

NHMP Sector Commander Senior Superintendent of Police Waheedur Rehman Khattak confirmed that the deployment of unauthorised individuals by patrolling staff to check vehicles was illegal and against SOPs.

He said there is a policy of zero tolerance for such practices, and that he has issued show-cause notices to the officers involved and ordered a departmental inquiry against them.

The NHMP officers were trying to meet ticket targets by deploying unauthorised people to check vehicles and issue tickets to them. They would park their cars in areas where traffic would slow down because of the condition of the road, particularly near the Wah Garden Bridge, and would target trucks and dumpers that were mostly carrying crushed stone and sand using the staff of a private contractor of the Fine Collection Unit (FCU).

The contractor's staff would wear official jackets and signal and halt vehicles using an 'official stop sign board' and fine them.

'We dumper and truck drivers are mostly uneducated and consider the person standing with the NHMP patrol car wearing an official jacket to be a motorway police official, as he signals with the official 'stop' sign,' dumper driver Umer Shah told Dawn.

Another truck driver, Kushkol Khan, said these pickets were established by NHMP officials with patrol cars who issued them tickets for various violations, including ones they had not committed, such as...