As part of witch-hunt launched against the Gülen movement following a failed coup on July 15, the Turkish government has suspended 9,103 police officers, the t24 news website reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, 2,500 of those suspended worked in İstanbul, while 1,350 were in Ankara.
Early on Wednesday, Turkish prosecutors issued detention warrants for 4,900 members of the police force due to their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, with 1,120 of them having been taken into custody so far.
According to a statement from Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on April 2, 10,732 police officers have been jailed since July 15.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement despite the lack of any evidence to that effect.
Although the Gülen movement strongly denies having any role in the putsch, the government accuses it of having masterminded the foiled coup. Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
Soylu said that a total of 113,260 people have been detained as part of investigations into the Gülen movement since the July 15 coup attempt, while 47,155 were put into pre-trial detention.
