Securing Pakistan

Purpose of the suggestions is to help identify, target and eliminate anti-state forces across our country

The Pakistani government needs to act swiftly and decisively to improve the security situation in the country.  Below are some suggestions on steps that can be immediately taken to do so: -

Build a centralised cell housed at the Ministry of Interior which is fed with live 24-hour footage from all over Pakistan. Every major city, police department, municipality and cantonment, airport, railway station, government building and highway entry and exit point should have CCTV cameras installed. Additionally, there are more than 10,000 bank branches in Pakistan. Roughly 70 per cent of them are online and each has at least two outward looking security cameras. There should easily be at least 20,000 CCTV feeds which can be added to the central surveillance cell. A joint task force, including the ISI and police personnel should manage this cell.

The level of scrutiny applicable for the issuance of new SIMS should also be applied to 3G and other similar devices. Physical presence of the subscriber at the registration site, ID card validation, biometric scan and activation after 48 hours of application should be bare minimum necessities.

All outstanding SIM cards should be revalidated. Over a course of six months, all subscribers must visit a mobile company office, present an ID card and provide a biometric scan, failing which, SIMs should be cancelled. Pakistan has about 140 million outstanding SIM cards for a population of 180 million. We should be targeting the cancellation of at least 20 million SIMs.

For a period of at least one year, roaming for all foreign SIMS should be temporarily blocked. Roaming on SIM Cards from Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and India should be blocked indefinitely.

Police salaries should be doubled. The current cumulative provincial budget allocation for Police is Rs177 billion out of which the salary component stands at Rs149 billion. Doubling their salaries would hence cost an additional Rs149 billion. This comes to Rs833 per capita. Policemen are grossly underpaid and this pay raise can be an immediate motivator at a critical time. The fiscal burden may be reduced by imposing additional taxes, possibly on petroleum products since a major relief has already been provided.  Doubling the life and health insurance coverage for policemen is also a must.

Immediately remove security from VIPs other than the president, the prime minister, the Leader of Opposition, governors and chief ministers.

A programme needs to be rolled out immediately where a Swat-like team, led either by an IG level police officer or the Brigadier General,  comprising of police, Rangers and other paramilitary troops must comb through all large cities, find illegal armories, spotcheck vehicles on highways and raid seminaries and arms dealerships in search of illegal weapons. Over a three-year period, at least two million illegal weapons must be recovered and destroyed.  Fifteen percent of police personnel relieved from VIP duty should be redeployed to this programme.

Everyone whose current place of residence does not match the “current address” section of their ID card should be considered a threat or a miscreant. A report should be lodged against them and if all is clear, they should be escorted by the Police to NADRA offices to update the respective records. A National campaign on media should also be conducted, urging citizens to visit NADRA and update records. Fifteen per cent of the police force, relieved from VIP duty, should be redeployed to this programme.  The police can initiate the programme through random spotchecks near suspicious areas.

Under the direction and guidance of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, all illegal and unregistered mosques and madarsas should be closed immediately. Moreover, a standard sermon should be to be released by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and should be delivered verbatim in all mosques.

Pakistan is not fighting a territorial war against a nation-state. This is now a war of ideologies and anti-state elements are spread far and wide. The purpose of the suggestions given above is to help identify, target and eliminate anti-state forces across our country. We must make it difficult for enemies to communicate, make access to and store of illegal weapons difficult and eventually impossible. They will bring war to us at random destinations and we will have to take it back to them similarly. Clerics will expose themselves by refusing to deliver a common khutba. Forces from the illegal arms recovery unit will stumble upon homes which will resist a search and will initiate fire. Occupants of illegal seminaries will resist closure forcefully, and at each step, our security agencies will have to be ready to take them on right there and then. One by one, we will have to comb through cities and towns till we take this menace to its logical end.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.