LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly secretary was sent on `forced` leave a day after his two sons tortured a traffic warden.

Rai Mumtaz Husain Babar was asked by Speaker Rana Iqbal to go on one-month leave after pressure from some quarters, which said the secretary`s presence during the torture incident meant the officer was involved in the episode.

Additional Secretary Hafiz Muhammad Shafiq has been given the additional charge of the office ofsecretary. Rai Fazal and Rai Najaf, both sons of the secretary, had thrashed warden Waqas for issuing them a fine ticket for violating a signal on Thursday. They were booked and bailed out the next day.

A television footage showed that Rai Mumtaz was present during the torture. But the warden did not charge him in the FIR he lodged with the Lytton Road police, a senior police officer said. `The warden had charged six men and identified two of them as sons of Rai Mumtaz but did not name Rai Mumtaz himself as among the accused,` the police officer said on the condition of anonymity.

`The investigation later revealed that yet another son and a nephew of Rai Mumtaz and their two employees were among the four unidenti-fled accused,` the officer said, adding it meant the secretary had no role in any manner in the incident.

A handout issued by the government gives the impression as if Rai Mumtaz has been removed from his office.

`Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has taken strict notice of the incident of violence against a warden by the sons of PA secretary and ordered removal of Rai Mumtaz from his post. The CM said the supremacy of law will be ensured at any cost and its violation will not be tolerated, reads the handout.

However, the chief minister has no power to remove or suspend the assembly staff as it is exclusive domain of the speaker. The chief minister can only recommend an action against the staff member to thespeaker.

Official sources said a senior bureaucrat in the CM office was against the posting of Rai Mumtaz as the assembly secretary and was working to bring a man of his own choice from outside the assembly secretariat for the post.

Rai Mumtaz had been made secretary on Nov 1, 2013, after remaining acting secretary for four months.

The sources wondered why a senior officer was being penalised without any inquiry. They said if just being the relative of an accused could be taken as a ground for penalty, then why the practice was not started from the top to set a precedent like removing the top person whose son-in-law had been found involved in a Defence bakery torture incident.