June 14, 2021: At least nine Lahore policemen have been suspended on Sunday for allegedly harassing and illegally arresting employees of a restaurant in Lahore’s DHA neighborhood after refusing to give them “free burgers”.
A few days before the decision to suspend them, some police officers visited the “Johnny and Jugnu” food and beverage restaurant in DHA Phase 6 and tried to get a free burger.
Upon refusal, however, the police were outraged and returned only on Friday night to arrest the entire staff of the restaurant on the grounds that the shop was “baseless and illegal”. has been given. Acting on the misuse of power by the police personnel, Punjab Inspector General Inam Ghani issued orders to suspend all the personnel involved in the incident, including the SHO of the Defense C police station, for exceeding his authority.
According to a statement, the Punjab Police Chief also directed the Lahore CCPO to take strict departmental and legal action against the personnel involved in the incident without any delay. “Officers and personnel involved in illegal activities do not deserve any concessions, so there should be no leniency in taking action against those responsible after the inquiry,” he added.
Describing the incident, the restaurant posted on its Facebook page: “This is not the first time this has happened to our kitchen teams at our restaurant, but we want to make sure it’s the last. Our kitchen teams were taken into police custody after about 1pm, adding that “19 of our innocent staff members were arrested overnight without any basis, as ordered by their SHO.” [Police] were locked up at the station. “
The statement regretted that demanding free food by policemen had “become a common practice” and when the restaurant staff refused the same earlier this week, the police officers “threatened our managers and left, only to return the next day to further harass and pressurise our teams on ground with baseless arguments, asking them to close the restaurant”.
On June 11, for almost seven hours in the night, “they (policemen) kept our team locked up, harassing them, pushing them around, all for not giving them free burgers, for not entertaining a ‘request from a very high profile special guest’”, the restaurant said.
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