Unfair compensation

All the various military, paramilitary, police forces fighting against militancy need to be treated the same.

On December 30, the Taliban kidnapped and then killed 21 Levies personnel at a checkpoint in Khyber Agency. Now there are news reports that the personnel were not accorded state funerals and no one from the government showed up to pay their respects to the departed. On top of that, it took the government over 10 days before it announced an aid package for the families of the martyred personnel. This is one of the most maddening aspects of our war against militancy. We end up being apathetic to the tribulations of those who are at the frontlines, risking their lives daily usually for very little pay. The very least we owe them is the comfort of knowing that their families will be taken care of should they die in the line of duty.

Part of the problem here is that personnel from the various security forces are all fighting the same militants but they come under the control of different government bodies. The Levies, for example, fall under the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) and appointments in the case of Khyber Agency are the responsibility of the Khyber political agent. Since SAFRON is not as well funded as, say, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) provincial government, Levies personnel end up making significantly less money than police officers in the settled areas of the province even though they often carry out the same duties. This has affected compensation after death, too. The K-P government also has a policy of giving jobs to the heirs of martyred officers whereas there is no such policy for the Levies.

Last July, President Asif Ali Zardari did sign a bill that raised the compensation level to from between Rs300,000 to Rs600,000 to Rs3m but this exists only on paper, not on the ground. What is actually needed is for all the various military, paramilitary and police forces involved in the fight against militancy to be treated exactly the same. A uniform policy, with the money coming from a centralised fund set up for the purpose, would go a long way towards boosting morale.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2013.