Additional IG says provincial govt has allocated Rs320 million
from existing police budget for this purpose
Karachi
The Sindh police’s Special Branch is undergoing a sorely-needed revamp at a cost of Rs320 million, the department’s chief said on Sunday.
“The Special Branch still uses a manual system of reporting, lacks a central data bank, and relies on manual record-keeping that is poorly maintained,” said Additional IG Special Branch Sanaullah Abbasi.
“Besides, it has a large inventory of dysfunctional security equipment, an ineffective canine unit, lacks intelligence-training facilities and has a poor office infrastructure and equipment,” he added.
The official said the revamping of the Special Branch was being carried out as per decision of the apex committee and the provincial government had earmarked Rs320 million from the existing police budget for this purpose.
“The Sindh government has immediately approved the proposal and released funds for upgrading the Special Branch.”
Abbasi noted that the police’s Special Branches in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were working efficiently but the one in Sindh was lagging far behind.
Functional set-up
The official said the Special Branch’s functional set-up included an Intelligence Branch and a Security Branch.
The Intelligence Branch role is to prepare information, assessment and special reports, carry out advance intelligence, monitor political, religious and other events and protests, analyse and report on governance issues.
Its special focus is on the surveillance of anti-state elements, proscribed organisations, militants and sectarian activists, individuals on the Fourth schedule, hate material and hate speeches and seminaries.
The Security Branch is responsible for the security of VVIPs and assessment and technical support on the security of foreigners, important buildings and events.
This branch also carries out the verification of government officials, security companies, pre-visa verification (Indian) and airport entry passes.
Abbasi said after taking charge of the Special Branch, a major responsibility was conducting security audit including the registration of madrasas in Sindh. “We have completed the security audit of all madrasas and schools in the province,” he added.
The official said with the revamping process, more responsibilities had been handed over to the Special Branch.
“There are 120 key points in Karachi and 232 in the rest of the province in terms of security and survey of foreigners and important buildings and installations.”
He said the Special Branch was also responsible for the registration of foreigners of the B-List (15 countries), issuance of resident permit after registration and issuance of travel permit on departure.
“We also have a bomb disposal squad unit assigned the task of technical sweeping of all venues visited by VVIPs, political venues, and routes of rallies and processions.
Abbasi said the Special Branch was working on fixing its issues including the shortage of manpower, lack of technical surveillance equipment and improving its research and analysis.
Besides, the Special Branch also training modules on intelligence as the existing curriculum of training schools and colleges was unsatisfactory.
“We are working on improving our intelligence gathering as we lack the required technical expertise.” He said the Special Branches in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had their intelligence schools but there was none in Sindh.
He added that the Sindh police’s Special Branch only had six dogs in its canine unit while Punjab had 30 and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 69.
“The Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Special Branches have data centres, and automation and research and analysis units while we have none.”
The official said after the upgrading process was completed, the Sindh police’s Sepcial Branch would have a centralised database at its headquarters, all fields units would be connected to the centralised data centre and online sharing of information, reporting and digital archiving of data would become possible, improving the quality of information management for policy decision-making and ridding the department of the hassles of conventional paper-based files and registers system.
Foreigners’ registration
Speaking on the issue of foreigners’ registration, Abbasi said the task was assigned to the Special Branch in Karachi and district police officers in rest of Sindh. “It has been proposed that the Special Branch offices in the rural Sindh be allowed to register foreigners,” he added.
“The Special Branch is investigating, prosecuting illegal foreigners and deporting illegal Afghans through the Chaman border. Under the law, this is the mandate of the Federal Investigation Agency and this issue may be taken up with the interior ministry.”
On the Bomb Disposal Squad, the official said the allocation of recurring expenditure under the head maintenance charges and the re-appropriation of Rs20 million for the existing dysfunctional equipment were taken up with the interior ministry. Besides, he added that the issue of bomb disposal vehicles and equipment donated by the US and UK for the Sindh police had also been taken up with the Centre.
“We also need GSM locators, live mobile cell data and intercepts which is needed for the effective functioning of the Special Branch. “It’s also necessary to implement the Fair Trial Act passed earlier to regulate the agencies,” he concluded.