KP to introduce policing in Fata with 45,000 cops

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police have finalised over 90 percent arrangements to introduce regular policing in the erstwhile tribal areas with 45,000 personnel and 95 police stations.

Besides, 13 police lines and 190 police posts will be set up across the tribal districts to improve the law and order and extend the police force to the erstwhile Fata. The Levies force and Khassadars will be made part of the 45,000- strong police contingent while 22,000 more personnel will be recruited.

“We have done over 90 percent of our homework. The force is in complete coordination with the Army and Frontier Corps about the operational matters of security in the tribal districts,” KP Inspector General of Police Salahuddin Khan Mahsud told The News.

“The police will also be in coordination with the security forces once we walk into Fata for setting up police stations and police lines,” he added.

The IGP said it will be made sure that no individual or family loses job in the process. “We have written to the civil administration again to provide the details including service record, education and others of all the Levies and Khassadars serving in the former Fata,” said Salahuddin Mahsud, who hails from the tribal Mahsud tribe. He has been picked by the federal government to introduce policing in the erstwhile Fata because of his tribal background.

The KP Police will need a number of buildings for police lines, police posts and police stations besides vehicles, weapons and other equipment for policing in the once troubled areas.

A source said that all the concerned units of the KP Police held a marathon meeting at the Central Police Office on Tuesday in which arrangements for extending the police force to the former tribal areas were given the final touches.

“All the concerned heads were directed by IGP to complete homework for phase-wise extension of the police force to the tribal areas that are now merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Special focus will be given on setting up the counter terrorism department and the elite force in the tribal districts that witnessed worst terrorism in the recent past,” a source told The News.

The official said the IGP directed that work on finalising the plan is expedited so the system can be introduced in the tribal districts merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa whenever the government issues formal orders.

There is an impression that a number of hurdles were being created in introducing the regular policing in the merged districts. The bosses of the KP Police have made it clear on a number of occasions that they will not accept any hybrid system of policing in the tribal districts.

There was a plan of setting up a central Levies office in Peshawar before extending the regular police to the tribal districts to monitor the placing through Levies and Khassadar force. The police force and the civil bureaucracy had disagreement on a number of points that has been delaying the finalisation of a unanimous structure for police in the merged districts.

Currently the deputy commissioner as the administrative head of the district heads the Levies and Khassadars serving in areas under their jurisdiction. The deputy commissioners were previously called political agents and were also the heads of the judicial system in the erstwhile Fata.

Many experts believe that all those already recruited in the Levies and Khassadar force should be trained and made part of the regular police by relaxing certain conditions for them due to the extraordinary situation prevalent in former Fata.

The experts said they can be imparted short training in the existing recruit and specialised schools before formally recruiting them on different ranks. They added that the required number of policemen can be recruited through the criteria required for other districts of the province.