Senate deliberates over Sindh Rangers chief’s statement. PHOTO: EXPRESS
ISLAMABAD:
Deliberating over the Rangers Sindh chief’s recent statement on Karachi law and order, Senator Farhatullah Babar of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has questioned the paramilitary force’s utility in the country’s financial hub.
During the Sindh Apex Committee’s meeting on Thursday, Rangers DG Maj-Gen Bilal Akbar had pointed out that a nexus of political leaders, civil servants and gang lords was involved in fostering and harbouring organised crime and terrorism in the metropolitan city.
“Billions of rupees collected from extortion, land grabbing, targeted killings and rackets are flowing into the coffers of some top personalities of Sindh,” the Rangers DG had said.
In Monday’s Senate session, Babar moved an adjournment motion regarding the Rangers chief’s statement.
He recalled that in October 2013, the government had given the paramilitary force unbridled powers for four months, including permission for detaining suspects for 90 days to interrogate them, as well as for shooting them if they resist arrest.
“What has then prevented the Rangers from delivering, despite being allowed to stay in the city for almost two years?”
Referring to disappearances, extrajudicial killings and the recent incident in which the Rangers troops raided the Mominabad police station and picked up a police constable, Babar said: “The point I want to drive home is that they had come to end crimes in Karachi, armed with enormous powers for four months.”
The claim that a sum of Rs230 billion is being generated annually through extortion, smuggling of Iranian diesel, illegal water supply and land grabbing was nothing but an admission of their own failure, he added.
He wanted to know what was stopping the paramilitary force from apprehending criminals, especially when they know how much money is involved and are familiar with the crime syndicate.
The senator surmised that either the Rangers were incompetent or they were in league with the mafia. “There is no other explanation.”
Babar emphasised that the Rangers’ contention defining land grabbing to illegal construction and encroachment on government land and encroachment on private property was right but certainly it was not the whole truth.
He said misuse of state lands allotted for a specific purpose by illegally changing their use to residential, commercial or for building golf courses was also illegal. “Unauthorised use and changing the use of land illegally is also a form of land grabbing.”
Last year, a Senate committee proposed setting up a committee to look into the illegality. Yet no action has been taken, he added.
Minister of State for Interior Balighur Rehman said Rangers were deployed in Sindh on the provincial government’s request. “They will serve there as long as the administration needs them.”
He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been in direct correspondence with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah.
“Apex committees have been formed for sharing intelligence with provincial leaders who are members of the committee.”
Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2015.
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