As a leave request to the Sindh government by the high-ups of the provincial police strengthened the claim that the IG was detained by the Sindh Rangers for the arrest of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Capt (r) Safdar, senior journalist Hamid Mir took a dig at journalist Kamran Khan for trying to refute his claim about the police chief’s detention on the basis of “irrefutable sources”.
The tweet by the Geo News anchorperson came on the heels of a news report which revealed that the high ranking officers of the service have sought a 60-day leave. An application signed by AIG Special Branch Imran Yaqoob, a copy of which is available with The Current, said that he submitted the request for leave after the police high command was “ridiculed and mishandled” leading to the demoralisation of all ranks of the Sindh Police.
In his recent tweet, Mir was referring to a statement made by Kamran Khan wherein he contested his claim about the detention of IG Mushtaq Mahar by the Rangers to force him to sign Safdar’s arrest warrants.
Following the arrest of Safar, Mir had tweeted: “Unfortunate incident. Sindh Govt informed PML-N leader Muhammad Zubair that IG [insector general] Sindh was kidnapped by Rangers at 4 in the morning he was brought in sector commander’s office where addnl IG was already present and were forced to issue the orders for the arrest of Cpt Rtd Safdar [sic],” Mir claimed in a tweet.
At this, Kamran Khan, who is an anchorperson at Dunya News, said that the IG was “fully onboard with the arrest”. Maintaining that internal rifts were affecting the affairs of the joint opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), Kamran Khan had quoted sources as saying that all claims regarding the IG’s arrest were not true.
Alluding to the application by the Sindh police officials, Mir asked Khan that what does he have to say about it now. He went on to advise him not to “refute his future reports” on the basis of the so-called “irrefutable sources”. “These irrefutable sources also called me with this claim, but go and ask them what I told them,” he said.
