Security detail: Punjab to foot the bill for securing PM’s Lahore house

Decision not supported by finance managers, police.

LAHORE:

Punjab will purchase security gadgets worth Rs11.5 million that will be installed at Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s personal residence in Lahore, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The new security gadgets will be installed at the PM’s Lahore residence in Y Block, Defence Housing Authority, a senior police officer told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity.

The security gadgets, owned by the special branch of police, include vehicle scanners, CCTV, Walkie Talkies, search lights, a sound system, a road blocker, walk-through gates and cabins, bomb locators/mine detectors, the latest version of handheld metal detectors and sniffer dogs. Similar gadgets were installed at the Raiwind camp office in February this year.

A team of special branch officials will be trained and deployed at the residence to operate these gadgets round the clock, the police official said.

The prime minister and his family are already provided protection by as many as 71 members of the Elite Force. While the prime minister’s security protocol has seven elite guards, 20 are deployed with his wife, 12 with his son Abdul Qadir Gilani, whose name appeared in connection with the Hajj scam, six each with his sons Haider and Qasim Gilani and 10 each with his daughter and son Musa Gilani. More than 50 police officials are currently deployed round-the-clock at the Lahore residence.

But the decision is not supported by the financial managers of the province.

“The Punjab government has been facing a severe financial crisis since the day it was sworn in. It has been availing the overdraft facility of the State Bank of Pakistan,” said an official from the finance department, requesting anonymity. “It is not justified to purchase new security gadgets while the province is facing financial constraints.”

Since it came to power, the Punjab government has provided Rs373 million to the police department for purchasing security gadgets for designated personalities including the president, prime minister, governor and chief minister. In December 2008, the police department spent Rs250 million to import such gadgets and, after purchasing new gadgets for the PM, funds to be utilised will increase to Rs384.5 million.

The allocation decisions of the Punjab government have also not gone down well with the provincial police force, which has come under direct threat from militants. In a major attack, 12 militants laid siege to the Manawan Police Academy on the outskirts of Lahore.

A police official, who wished not to be named, said that while the regular police forces faced a shortage of modern weapons, the government was generously providing funds for purchasing heavy security gadgets for a select few.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2011.