Sindh’s CS launches sexual harassment inquiry against Director (Advertisement), others

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah has launched investigations into various complaints of sexual harassment against Director and Deputy Director of the Information Department, it is learnt.

According to sources, the Chief Secretary took this decision after a group of senior female journalists and owners of newspapers held a detailed meeting with the Chief Secretary informing him about the rude and unethical behavior of the information officers.

The officers included Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah, and Deputy Director Sarwar Samejo who misbehaved with the professional journalists at director’s office.

After the incident, sources told that the affected females rushed to the office of Chief Secretary and apprised him about the whole episode, adding that these females also submitted written complaints against both these officers for strict action.

“Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah has forwarded complaints to the Chairman Anti-Corruption for proper investigation at the earliest”, sources added.

It is mentioned here that Sindh’s information and archives department, which is responsible for dealing with matters of print and electronic media and issue advertisements to newspapers, has been allegedly under the clutches of few corrupt officers since long.

Instead of learning from the past bad experiences, the information department has been on the same track of corrupt practices and commission mafia headed by its Director General Mansoor Ahmed Shaikh and Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah for the last two and a half years.

According to sources, Director (Advertisement) enjoys strong political backing of PPP leaders including Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and nowadays Saeed Ghani who is presently Sindh Minister for Labour, Information and Archives. Director Zulfikar Ali Shah is running the information department while showing himself as the front man of Saeed Ghani, sources added.

In year 2018, Director Zulfikar Ali Shah compelled senior bureaucrats (secretaries of BS-20 grade) to quit the post following his corrupt practices and hundreds of complaints from the owners of the newspapers.

The secretaries who got themselves transferred from the post of secretary included Altaf Bijarani, Saleem Raza Khuhro, Qazi Shahid Pervez, Abdul Rasheed Solangi and Ahmed Bux Narejo.

In December 2019, Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah, while using powers of the secretary, illegally transferred four Information Officers (BS-17) and asked them to report to Section Officer (BS-17) for further posting, sources said, adding that it is the prerogative of the secretary to assign and transfer BS-17 officer however director has no authority to do so.

Furthermore, Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah has been facing corruption charges of more than 400 million in advertisement released to newspapers without taking permission from the concerned courts. Interestingly, now the director has been putting all the blame on all the information officers for this mess however the signing authority of these advertisement was only him.

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