KABUL (SW): Lateefa Nasrullah Nazad, the only woman candidate for the post of head of police station in Kabul, claims the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has omitted her name from the list of short-listed officers without any legal justification.
Last month, the MoI replaced all heads of police stations in the city and heads of some district police chiefs in an unprecedented move following string of deadly terrorist attacks. The MoI took oral and written tests from some 1000 candidates in this regard, and 21 out of 93 short-listed candidates reached the final stage. Lateefa claims her name was present in this list of 21 candidates, but was ‘replaced with someone else’.
Talking to Salam Watandar, Lateefa claimed her name was present in the list of 17 short-listed police station heads and four regional police heads. She added her aim was to bring positive change in the minds of women.
The MoI set four basic requirements for these posts namely no criminal record, graduation from the police academy, three to ten years of experience in security sector and good image in public view. Lateefa said she fulfilled all these requirements, and passed all tests, but instead of being appointed as head of a police station, her name was replaced with someone else’s in the final list.
She stressed that instead of encouraging women, the MoI discouraged her with no female member on the selection committee board.
Meanwhile, the MoI has clarified that there were a total of three tests, and Lateefa did not appear in the third one after the oral and written tests.
Lateefa, however, asserted that she was discriminated, and an officer even inquired from her how can she serve as head of police station ‘being so heavy weight’.
Lateefa graduated from the police academy in 2012, and has served on a number of security posts since then.
The latest shuffle at the MoI comes at a time when at least 90 top officials have been referred to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) for investigations into alleged cases of corruption and misuse of power.
Nusrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the MoI, has asserted that these changes and new appointments have been transparent aimed at improving security in the capital city.
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