SAHIWAL: In the wake of Sahiwal firing incident, a new standard operating procedure (SOP) has been put in place for police officers that bars them from firing at a vehicle if it doesn’t stop at a checkpost after being flagged down, ARY News reported.

A notification has also been issued in this regard by the office of superintendent of police (SP) for Mobiles in Lahore.

Under the new SOP, a wireless coordination will be carried out immediately to inform about a vehicle that is seen as suspicious by cops. While during checking, an officer should behave politely, rather than interacting rudely with an owner or people aboard a vehicle.

The police have been directed to conduct checking on suspicious vehicles only, “no citizen should be harassed unnecessarily,” the SOP says.

It said the checking of suspicious persons or pedestrians would be conducted through android phones.

Four people, including two women, were killed in a shady encounter involving the Punjab police’s counter-terrorism department (CTD) on a highway in the Qadirabad area of Sahiwal district on Saturday noon.

The Sahiwal incident sent shock waves across the country after one of the surviving children who witnessed the episode refuted the version of the CTD.

The CTD spokesperson said Zeeshan, who was among the deceased, was an associate of a banned terror organization who would provide shelter to terrorists. He said a group of terrorists had planned an attack at some places and Zeeshan was travelling to provide them explosives.

Later, Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat on Tuesday termed the Sahiwal encounter ‘100 percent correct’, but added that the initial investigation report by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) had held the CTD officials responsible for the loss of innocent lives in Sahiwal.

The provincial law minister said that in light of the JIT report, Additional IGP of the CTD and the DIG Sahiwal were immediately being removed from their posts, while DIG and the SSP of CTD had been suspended.

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