Police personnel begin drug test in Rawalpindi – Pakistan

RAWALPINDI: Following directives from the police department to nominate drug addicts from the rank of gendarme force at the Pakistan Police Service (PSP), drug testing of the police force has started in Rawalpindi

According to a police spokesperson, during the first phase, the drug testing of senior police officers will be carried out in accordance with international protocol.

Drug testing will be carried out at the traffic and district police headquarters and at the offices of the PS.

Priority will be given to police officers suspected of using drugs, the spokesperson said on Sunday.

For part of the traffic police, traffic chief Rai Mazhar organized drug tests on traffic personnel at the traffic police headquarters.

The CTO said that DSP headquarters personally oversee the health profiling process to ensure transparency and that if a traffic police officer or official were involved in drug use, strict ministerial action would be taken. against him, which would result in his dismissal.

No drug addicts will be part of the Punjab police in the future, according to IGP

“No drug addict will be part of the Punjab police in the future,” said a document released by the office of the provincial police chief.

“We decided to conduct police health profiling to make the accountability process more efficient so that black sheep involved in drug use can be forcibly removed.”

Inspector General of Police (IGP) Inam Ghani feared that “habitual drug addicts” in the police force would facilitate or participate in the activities of drug traffickers.

Punjab’s police chief has decided to conduct frequent psychological profiling and drug testing of officers who cause mental illness. People with mental illness would not be assigned to a field post.

The decision to closely monitor the mental health of police officers and drug users by ensuring their regular psychological profiling and by referring cases of people declared medically unfit to a medical commission was taken at a meeting recently chaired by the IGP.

One of the meeting attendees told Dawn that policing is a high-stress profession that can cause mental health issues and that some recent suicide incidents involving police officers have led to close monitoring of staff mental issues. that could also be due to drug use.

“Now drug tests would also be carried out in addition to psychological tests of personnel with mental disorders, which also cause mental illnesses,” he said, adding that “extremism” is one factors that cause mental stress and that factor will also be considered. .

Another senior police officer with extensive training experience said mental health and attitude had become a major issue in the police service that needed to be checked out, especially among senior officers who were themselves victims critical behaviors.

“Whenever they are in office, their mental health and abilities need to be examined,” he said.

In Rawalpindi, drug testing of police officers / officials is carried out by nurses from a private laboratory.

A senior doctor who did not wish to be named told Dawn that drug tests would help expose people who had used drugs or were involved in such activities.

Similar psychological profiling exercises for judicial police personnel were carried out in 2014 after the assassination of the former governor of Punjab Salman Taseer in Islamabad by his bodyguard in 2011 and after the murder of two brothers by the “Muhafiz”. Squad ”in Rawalpindi in June 2015.

But that could not change the attitude of senior police officers towards their subordinates and the public.

As a final step, the IGP has asked divisional police chiefs to ensure regular psychological profiling and drug testing of their subordinates and to refer cases of those found medically unfit for medical advice.

Although drug tests on police personnel have been launched in Rawalpindi, psychological profiling of the police has yet to be initiated.

Posted in Dawn, June 21, 2021