Opposition decries highhandedness of K-P police

Law minister says will form public safety commission for monitoring the force


K-P Assembly. PHOTO: AFP

PESHAWAR: Opposition benches in the provincial assembly have condemned the model policing system of the K-P and blamed that uncheck empowering to the police forces from the provincial government have made them more brutal forces than addressing the law and order and public grievances.

The provincial assembly session resumed on Tuesday with Speaker Mushtaq Ghani in the chair.

Lawmakers of Mutahidda Majlis Amal (MMA) Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) came down harsh on reports of police brutalities and registered public grievances on the assembly floor.

MMA’s Inyat Ullah Khan said that with the advent of the December 1979 Russian invasion and the ensuing Afghan war in the 1980’s, peace and stability of the region has been disrupted.

Amid the deteriorating law and order situation, he said, police had been rendered the duty of security forces in the province.

“Police Act empowered the force, but we regret to say that they have become arrogant with new powers while their performance deliverance has been dropping day after day,” the JUI-F leader said.

PML-N MPA Sardar Ahmed Nalota said: “Our government had provided state-of-the-art equipment to the force, but still we witness the brutalities of the police on our daily lives.”

He said that in some areas there was no police and governance and people were taking their issues to militant warlords for justice.

“We could not make police a model system. The force harasses the people it is supposed to protect. Lives and properties of people are at risk from police personnel. Drugs and arms trafficking are at all-time high,” the PML-N MPA said.

ANP MPA Shagufta Malik demanded the K-P government to arrange a briefing on the law and order situation in the province. “Our province is a frontline area against the militancy and we have to take action against the beasts in the police force,” she said.

National Action Plan (NAP) was a failed idea of the central government which was adopted by K-P as well, she said pointing out that inspite of tall claims of progress in controlling militancy the target killer of the renowned religious scholar Maulana Samiul Haqi and K-P police SP Tahir Dawar abductors and killers were still at large.

Another MPA Bashir Umerzai said that senior police officials get police guards, while the member of the provincial and central assembly were setting ducks for the target killers.

While in the discourse of the opposition benches, the Minister for Law Sultan Mehmood Khan told the House that the PTI government has set free the police from political interference.

He said that if any of police officers shows disrespect to the honourable members of the K-P Assembly, they would not be allowed to perform duty in the province.

“We have empowered and equipped the police force of the province and set a model for the rest to follow and will also form a check and balance system for the police in the shape public safety commission for monitoring the forces in the province,” he said.

On the adjournment motion the MMA Malik Zafar Azam brought to the notice of the speaker to the cracks in the Latamber Small Dam in Karak district and asked the house to probe into the case.

The speaker and minister for law also ensured the MMA member for the probe into the case, later the speaker adjourned the session until tomorrow.

FAFEN report

The Free and Fair Election Network in its daily fact sheet stated that the assembly passed the K-P Land Acquisition (Mines) (Amendment) Bill 2019 and adopted three supplementary resolutions after suspension of rules.

The bill was introduced in the House on March 26, 2019.

Moved by the lawmakers belonging to ANP and PTI, the House adopted three resolutions to condemn the murder of Shakeel Khan, nephew of ANP MPA Waqar Ahmad Khan in New York, end discrimination with members of a minority community by specifying posts of sanitation workers for them and need to add Kalasha religion in the Constitution.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2019.

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