Bandits quipped with ‘advanced weaponry’

ISLAMABAD:

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Privileges was informed on Friday that bandits hiding in Kacha [riverine] areas of Punjab possess American-made weapons and received training in their use in India.

The committee, which met here with its chairman Rana Qasim Noon in the chair, received a briefing from Punjab police and other officials regarding the ongoing operation to purge the Kacha area from outlaws.

The committee directed the interior secretary and the defence production secretary to provide the necessary resources, including military-grade weapons, to the Punjab police for their fight against the bandits.

Additional Inspector General (AIG) of Punjab Police Rao Munir briefed the committee about the operation. “The operation against the bandits started on April 9 and so far, more than 58,000 acres of land have been cleared,” AIG Munir told the committee.

Rana Noon asked the police officer whether it was true that some influential people who lived outside bought land in the Kacha area at a cheap price. AIG Munir confirmed that there were reports of such practice.

The Kacha area along the Indus River in southern districts of Punjab is the focus of police and security forces operations against criminal hideouts. The AIG said that the operation was being carried out with “full planning” and therefore, police casualties were very low.

“Around 4,500 police personnel are participating in the operation,” Rao Munir told the committee. “One of our policemen was martyred during the operation, while three others were injured,” he said, adding that 26 criminals had surrendered to the authorities.

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The AIG said that the criminals had weapons that were left by US soldiers in Afghanistan. “They have a thermal system, they target our men from even 2 kilometres distance. They have received training in India,” he added.

Briefing the committee, Rahim Yar Khan District Police Officer (DPO) Rizwan Gondal said that bandits “have better weapons than ours and this is the ground reality”. He emphasised that the police should also be equipped with military-grade weapons.

“The bandits have mortars, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and anti-aircraft guns. The weapons they possess can even blow up an armoured vehicle,” DPO Gondal told the lawmakers on the committee.

On that, Noon directed the interior secretary and the defence production secretary to provide military-grade weapons to the Punjab Police so that they could deal with the criminals in the Kacha area effectively.

The police officials told the committee that since last year, the police had not been given funds for the provision of armoured personnel carriers (APCs). If the police got the APCs, a police official added, “it would help us in the ongoing operation”.

In his briefing, the Rajanpur DPO dilated on the issues related to infrastructure in the Kacha areas. “In the rainy season, the area becomes inaccessible. We have written to the chief secretary for building two bridges and some roads,” he said.

“If roads and bridges are built, it will become difficult for dacoits to stay in the area,” he added. A representative of the Punjab chief secretary said that a proposal to build 20 different roads, 40 pickets, and four base camps in the area was under consideration.

During the meeting, committee member Syed Sami Gilani raised the issue of the Fourth Schedule – a list of persons proscribed by the provincial Home Department under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Gilani said that since last 15 years, people have been placed on the Fourth Schedule and which made their lives difficult. “The people whose names have been cleared, should be removed from the Fourth Schedule,” he urged.

A Punjab government officer told the committee that there were lots of restrictions regarding the Fourth Schedule because of the measures pertaining to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in the last few years.

Also read TTP present in Kacha areas, says Punjab IG

“Relief is being provided to the people now,” the officer said. “People should apply according to the procedure, and if they are cleared by the district intelligence committees, then their names will be removed from the Fourth Schedule,” he added.

Another committee member, Chaudhry Ashraf, raised the issue of his illegal arrest. The former director general of the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) replied that permission was not taken from the National Assembly speaker for the arrest.

“Action is being taken against officials who arrested Chaudhry Ashraf,” he said. The chair observed that all the anti-corruption officials of Punjab, who arrested Chaudhry Ashraf, should appear in the committee meeting.