MULTAN: Two officers -one from the police and the other from the information department -have been transferred to other districts from Multan over an incident which reportedly displeased the chief minister during his visit to Multan on March 25.

Dawn learned the authorities transferred Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sharif Zaffar to Dera Ghazi Khan on April 1 and District Information Officer (DIO) Waseem Yousuf to the Director General of Public Relation (DGPR) office in Lahore on April 4.

On March 25, ChiefMinister Shahbaz Sharif visited the Violence Against Women Centre with some ambassadors and the governor. During the visit, a man approached the chief minister and tried to give him a file, introducing himself as the press club president. The sudden interruption angered the chief minister who refused to oblige the man and moved on.

Sources said when the chief minister was on the stage, he called his personal staff officer and again expressed his displeasure over the incident.

Soon, Regional Police Officer (RPO) Sultan Azam Temouri was told to look into the issue.

In pursuance of the issue, Mr Zaffar was transferred over his department`s inabilityto figure out the presence of an irrelevant person at the ceremony. Since the intruder introduced him as a journalist, the other scapegoat was found in Mr Yousaf, sources said.

RPO Temouri said the presence of one or two irrelevant persons in such ceremonies was a routine matter. He said it was not a security lapse as the person who got managed to contact the chief minister was a journalist.

Multan Director of Public Relations Mahmood said Mr Yousuf had not been transferred but had been asked to report to the DGPR office.

He said he did not know how the irrelevant person was present at such a high profile ceremony.