Tracking militants: Police seek laws covering hotels, rented places

Claim enhanced registration of such places will help curb terrorism.

PESHAWAR:

The province’s top cop has asked the government to make legislation regarding rental accommodations and hotels to help law enforcement agencies effectively counter terrorism.

According to official sources, IGP Nasir Khan Durrani recently wrote a letter to the government, asking it to make laws to help the police curb terrorism. The police force has suggested the following two laws: the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Restriction of Rented Buildings Act and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Hotels Restriction Act.

In the proposed rental regulations act, landlords are suggested to be under legal obligation to give details of tenants to the local police. Furthermore, the tenants would only be allowed accommodation after thorough verification of credentials through two well-respected Pakistanis and submission of the tenants’ identity cards within three days of occupation of the rented premises.

Failure of the landlord to intimate local police about their credentials will be a cognisable offence and violators will be liable to arrest under the proposed law. The proposed law further states that if the tenant is involved in a crime and has no record at the police station, the respective landlord will be charged for abetting and harbouring criminals.

Similarly, the law pertaining to regulation of hotels provides for each hotel and guesthouse to be registered with the local police and makes it mandatory for management to maintain a computerised record of guests to be shared with authorities in real time. The law makes the hotel management responsible for verifying credentials of all guests through NADRA, maintaining complete information of all guests, checking baggage for arms and explosives, and ensuring that no unauthorised and unaccounted guest resides on the premises.

The police have also proposed a central database for all tenants and guests staying in rental accommodations and hotels which will be updated on a daily basis. Officials hope the initiative will help police identify and apprehend suspects without causing inconvenience to the general public through door-to-door search operations.

Police officials have repeatedly complained of a lack of legal mechanism to keep a check on guests living in hotels and tenants of rented spaces.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2014.