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Thursday March 28, 2024

Sindh govt unmoved on advice to depoliticise police

ISLAMABAD: The Karachi Police sources find no hint of an improvement so far, thereby, suggesting as if the Sindh government has once again ignored the advice of depoliticising the police department to effectively check terrorism and other heinous crimes in the troubled city.During their latest visit to Karachi, Prime Minister

By our correspondents
February 21, 2015
ISLAMABAD: The Karachi Police sources find no hint of an improvement so far, thereby, suggesting as if the Sindh government has once again ignored the advice of depoliticising the police department to effectively check terrorism and other heinous crimes in the troubled city.
During their latest visit to Karachi, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief General Raheel Sharif keenly sought from the provincial government depoliticisation of Karachi Police to check crime and terrorism in the city. However, what was expected from the Qaim Ali Shah government is not forthcoming.
Instead, it is business as usual i.e. the police remain highly politicised. These sources strongly deny even any hint of an improvement.Some media reports suggested that in their closed-door meeting, the federal authorities candidly asked the provincial government to do whatever was possible for the sake of peace in Karachi. Inadequacies and failures of the provincial government were also voiced.
But some excerpts of the army chief’s views expressed inside the meeting room were shared with the media by the DG ISPR whereby General Raheel Sharif was quoted as saying that action should be taken against all criminals without any distinction based on political, religious or sectarian lines. The army chief was also quoted to have stressed on the need to depoliticise the police force in Karachi for the sake of permanent peace in the city.
It was also conveyed by the DG ISPR that the army chief sought police transfers without political influence but through the apex committee.The same evening, the Sindh Minister for Information Sharjeel Memon told Geo TV that the apex committee said nothing on appointments, transfers and postings in the police force.
He added the meeting discussed the mechanism of appointments in the Sindh Police for which Asif Zardari made a voluntary offer that a representative of the Rangers may be included in the selection board to make the appointment process transparent.
But two days day later, on Wednesday, the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and senior PPP leader Syed Khursheed Shah in a statement said that the role of the apex committee was not to govern but to monitor and if efforts were made to run the affairs of the provinces through apex committees, it would be dangerous.
“The government should avoid spoiling the current system and should not create such a situation that would be dangerous for the country,” he was quoted as having said, which was a clear “No” to the army chief’s suggestion of making appointments in police through the apex committee.
On February 16, one of the tweets by the DG ISPR regarding the army chief’s statement read, “#COAS: Better Coord b/w LEAs, Int agencies must. Police be empowered as apolitical, effctive force. Postings w/o interference, through Apex Cmte.”
What Khursheed Shah said two days after the prime minister chaired the apex committee’s meeting in Karachi is believed to be a calculated response of the Pakistan People’s Party, which is ruling Sindh, rejecting the police appointments through the apex committee.
Constitutionally and legally, it is the provincial government’s prerogative to make appointments in the police department but in view of the lawlessness even the Supreme Court of Pakistan intervened in 2011 and, besides other steps, sought depoliticisation of the police. However, the Sindh government neither depoliticised the police nor followed several other key directions of the Supreme Court.
The PPP may consider this an interference into provincial government’s affairs but what Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief General Raheel want is peace for the city for which depoliticised police are considered a must.