Combating militancy: K-P plans to make Peshawar a safer city

Security plan aims to provide a 24-hour surveillance system within the city.

PESHAWAR:

Amidst rampant lawlessness that prevails in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the government has proposed a “Safe City Peshawar Project” calling for more than 6,000 police personnel to be deployed in Peshawar alone.

A statement issued by the Home and Tribal Affairs department on Friday said that not only local, but foreign investors were also troubled because of the imminent security threats in the city. Particularly investors from North America and Europe have been aggravated by the recent spate of terrorist attacks.

“The proposed solution is a highly integrated and complicated system, which includes technological solution to curb militants attacks mostly carried out by alien immigrants involving stolen and unregistered vehicles,” said the statement.

The project includes establishing call centres, better video surveillance, a geographic information system, a global positioning system and a radio frequency identification system combined with a new driving licence system to prevent vehicle bourn bomb attacks. The new security plan also focuses on public security and an emergency response system.

A meeting held on July 4 decided to take the approval of the federal government to seek clearance of the project from the Central Developing Working Party. The police department will be asked for their input regarding the need of the project.

“The Planning and Development and Home Department will pursue the project and seeks replies in the next few days,” it said.

Qamar Ali, an official of the home department, said that the basic concept of a safe city has been taken from the security model of Islamabad. “The project will be immediately implemented once we have the demand list from the military as well as the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police,” he said.

The statement stresses that the manpower for the project will be provided from the existing strength of the police department. More than 6,000 policemen will be needed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2012.