RAWALPINDI: Following the Inspector General of Police Punjab`s orders, police officers and officials holding dual citizenship have been directed to promptly submit their dual nationality certificates.

City Police Officer (CPO) Syed Khalid Hamdani, in his directives to all SPs, including security, CIA and Investigation, SDPOs, SHOs, Muharrar police lines, security division and in-charges of Dolphin Force, Elite Force and others to submit dual citizenship certificate, either they have been holding or not, without any delay by Monday.

Earlier in May, IGP Dr Usman Anwar had sought the details of the police officials and offieres of Police Service of Pakistan (PSP), who had been holdingdualnationality.

The IGP had also sought the details of how many police officials ofinspectors ranks,inspector legal and senior traffic wardens had been holdingdualnationality.

In this regard, a performa, seek-ing the name of region and unit, names of the country holdingdualcitizenship, date of holdingdualcitizenship and name ofInspector Establishment Branch, Inspector Legal, inspector /telecommunication, finger print bureau & Senior Traffic Warden etc holdingdualnationality.

The IGP has directed the police across the province, including IGP National Highway & Motorway Police Islamabad, the commandant national police academy Islamabad, additional inspector generals of police South Punjab, Multan, Investigation branch, Special Branch, CTD, PHP, IAB, EPF, Operations, Crime Control Department (CCD) and Training, Punjab to provide the details of their dual citizenship.

All regional police officers (RPOs), DG anti-corruption Punjab, DG FIA Islamabad, COO Safe Cities Authority, the Chief Traffic Officers, Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan and Rawalpindi. All principal Police Training Schools in Punjab and Commandant Ring Road Police Lahore had beendirected to provide the names of officers with ranks DSP, ASP and above, postings anddualnationality, if yes then also mention the name of the country.

A senior police officer revealed that 30 to 40 percent of officials/ officers` families had been holdingdualnationalities of different countries, including Canada, Turkiye, UK and Malta and this trend is more in Punjab police compared to KPK and otherprovinces.

While citing one example of a police officer who went abroad for study after getting long leave from the police department but when he returned back to Pakistan, he was holdingdualnationality.

Another police officer said that one should be asked whether the police officers/officials themselves have been holdingdualnationality and how many families of police officials/officers have been holdingdualnationality.

Once the families of police officers/officials get thedualnationality, it becomes much easier for them to get it after retirement or in case of acquitting the job.