ISLAMABAD, May 29: The government has made District Education Officer (female) Chitral Zohra Jalal as an officer on special duty (OSD). A government officer is always made OSD as a punishment for their incompetence or on different complaints. It has become routine for new governments to make transfers and postings bringing their own people on key posts. But what prompted the PTI government to make Zohra Jalal an OSD is not clear. The government has not yet named her substitute and it is said that some PTI workers in the district were trying to induct their own officer on the post. The rhetoric of upholding merit by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) remained an uphill task for the party despite passage of one-and-half-years as it has now started making competent people as officer on special duty (OSD) without citing any reason. The PTI government made Zohra Jalal OSD completely ignoring her services in the education sector despite all the hurdles in the backward district. The news about making Zohra Jalal OSD and that too in presence of a competent provincial education minister like Muhammad Atif Khan, who has a track record of upholding the merit, has sent shock waves in the area. The people were still not ready to believe that PTI-led provincial government could take such an unpopular decision against a local qualified lady officer at the behest of some black sheep in the party who have blatantly misguided him for their own vested interest. They also maintained that replacement of Zohra Jalal as DEO (female) would badly affect female education in the district. The people of the area termed the move shameful, inappropriate and downright incompetence by the provincial high-ups as it was purely taken on the dictations of some party workers bent upon imposing their incompetent relatives by sidelining competent officers through backdoor channels. At the same time, the people also declared that removal of Zohra Jalal as DEO (female) will be disastrous for female education in the backward district. Ms Jalal is the only female officer who was elevated to the post after she qualified the Public Service Commission. sources said the decision to make the top female officer as OSD was taken after a worker of the PTI Chitral greased the palms of provincial high-ups when the lady officer refused to recruit his men in the education department. They said that the so-called ideological worker of the party was also solely responsible for the emerging rift within the party in the district. According to insiders, he is now hell-bent to discourage competent lady officers of the education department to plant another woman with a controversial past.]]>