Citizen support system: Lashkar members point to ‘double standards’

Say police and govt compensate only bomb blasts victims.

PESHAWAR:

Government and institutional compensation covers families of only those peace militia men and community police personnel who have died in bomb blasts, leaving relatives of those slain in other incidents in need of help, The Express Tribune has learnt.

“The families [of those target killed] have not been compensated at all, affecting morale of the two forces that are fighting militants alongside police and security forces,” Mukamal Shah, a  spokesman for Tapa Mohmand Amn Committee, said.

Shah said that a member of their committee, Aftab Sahar, was caught and slaughtered two days later by Lashkar-e-Islam militants because he carried a community police card. “Sahar alias Qamary has five children and a widow but neither police nor the government provided the family with any compensation on the grounds that the man had not been killed in a blast.”

He said that as per the provincial government’s standard operating procedures, Rs300,000 have been provided but in the cases of community policemen, not even that amount is paid.

“They use our people for intelligence and [for reinforcement during] armed patrolling. We accompany police during raids. But what is the reward? When our men are killed in gun-battle, they are not treated at a par with police,” he said.

‘They do not recognise him as a martyr’

Ghani, brother of Muhammad Fida who heads the Suleiman Khel Aman Lashkar, was a community police member and killed in December 2010 by local militants. The family, however, was denied any compensation.

“To this day, the government or police do not recognise him as Shaheed, what to speak of compensation? He was targeted for being my brother and a part of community police personnel,” says Fida.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2012.