Provincial security: Federal govt to send FC platoons back to K-P

Court gives two months for personnel to be returned from Karachi, Islamabad.

PESHAWAR:

The federal government will be relocating 73 Frontier Constabulary (FC) platoons back to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

Some of FC platoons, originally meant to be based in the province, had been shifted and deployed to other areas of the country, mainly to Karachi, Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan. A number of them had also been shifted to militancy-hit tribal areas to assist the army in military operations.

The FC platoons are to be relocated as per court orders that were given after the K-P government filed a writ petition against the federal government. The petition asked that the FC platoons be sent back to the province, keeping in mind the worsening law and order situation.

On Tuesday, a Peshawar High Court (PHC) division bench comprising PHC Chief Justice (CJ) Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth was told that the decision to send the troops back had been taken earlier on October 22 during a meeting in Islamabad.

Interior Deputy Secretary Muhammad Mureed said that it had been unanimously been agreed upon by both the K-P and the federal governments to return half of FC platoons currently assisting the army, 13 platoons who were sent to Lyari, Karachi, for an operation, while 20 more from Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad will also be relocated.

In a written reply submitted to the court, the federal government said 75 FC platoons under the ‘Malakand’ package and 51 under the prime minister’s directives would be created to further strengthen security across K-P.

The PHC bench later directed authorities to complete the relocation within two months, following which the case will be reopened.

Since the FC was incepted in the British era, the personnel were meant to be deployed only in the ‘buffer zone’ between the tribal and settled areas of the province, keeping an eye on people entering the settled areas from the tribal belt.

However, when the federal government deployed FC platoons in other parts of the country for providing VVIPs’ security, the K-P government filed a petition asking for their personnel to be sent back to their base.

The PHC took notice of the issue and during the a case hearing on September 18 issued a final warning to the interior ministry to return the FC troops to K-P, otherwise their deployment outside the province would be made illegal.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2012.