Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday assured the Sindh Assembly that the police force in the province would not be allowed to transgress its powers and award punishments to suspected criminals as courts were present to decide cases of such people and penalise them in accordance with the law.
Using the terms of ‘full fry’ and ‘half fry’ to denote extrajudicial killings and other violent ways associated with the police, the CM remarked that in no way his government would allow the police to subject the accused persons to ‘full fry’ and ‘half fry’.
The assurance from the CM came as he was responding to various written and verbal queries of the lawmakers related to the finance and human rights departments during the question hour of the assembly.
The aforementioned two terms are widely believed to be used by the officers of the provincial police force to unofficially direct junior officers to take a certain course of action regarding the arrested suspects.
It is believed that the term ‘half fry’ is used to informally order police officials to torture a person in their custody, while the term ‘full fry’ is used when an arrested person has to be eliminated through extra-judicial killing. The two infamous jargons are believed to be mostly used in interior parts of Sindh. The matter of these coded informal terminologies was raised in the house by a jailed MPA and former provincial minister of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, Sharjeel Inam Memon.
Responding to Memon, the CM said the police were not allowed to dispense justice on their own. “The courts are present to decide the cases concerning the accused people as they should hand down the punishments. The police are not permitted to hand down punishment on their own,” Shah remarked.
Govt borrowings
The CM also informed the house during the question hour that the provincial government had taken out 23 cash development loans (CDL) amounting to around Rs14 billion for a period of 25 years, including the grace period of five years.
Responding to a question, Shah explained that as on June 30, 2018, there were 23 outstanding CDLs of around Rs14 billion payable to the federal government. He added that the interest rate for the loans varied from 7.42 to 17.71 per cent per annum for a period of 25 years, including the five years grace period.
Answering a supplementary question, the CM said that the last CDL was taken in 2003-4 and after that no such loan had been taken out from the federal government.
Shah answered another supplementary question, stating that the provincial government did not take out loans from commercial banks. “Oh yes, the provincial government takes overdraft [OD] from the State Bank of Pakistan [SBP] when it falls short of funds,” he said, adding that the OD facility was availed last time by the caretaker government in 2018.
The CM also clarified that there was no outstanding borrowing from the SBP from September 2016 to September 2018.
To another supplementary question, the CM said the provincial government could not retire entire loans because of the federal government’s policy and the conditions of loan agreements. “The federal government never allows the provincial governments to retire loan in toto,” he said and explained that the provincial government regularly paid installments of the loans it took out in the past.
Human rights
To a query regarding education, the CM remarked that the purpose of education was the full development of human personality and it should inculcate respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in human beings.
Shah maintained that the provincial human rights department was working to ensure that everyone had access to the fundamental right to education. The human rights department was coordinating with the education department to strengthen mechanism of recruitment system on merit, develop curriculum and ensure attendance of teachers, for which operation against ghost teachers had also been initiated, the CM explained.
Responding to a supplementary question, the CM said the government was including children’s rights in the curriculum. Shah informed the house that the human rights department, via its toll-free helpline 0800-00011, had so far received 31 complaints of human rights violation against the Sindh police, of which 20 complaints were received in 2015, eight in 2016, one in 2017 and two in 2018. The grievances were redressed accordingly, he claimed.
Explaining the human rights violation cases recorded with the help of news published in the print media, the CM said 4,326 cases were registered during the last four years, of which 757 cases were registered in 2015, 1,704 in 2016, 1,352 in 2017 and 513 in 2018.
“The human rights department addresses cases of karo-kari, rape, murder, domestic violation and acid throwing,” Shah said, adding that the government was strengthening the department to uphold the cause of human rights.
The CM informed the house that literature on various themes related to human rights, including rights of women, rights of orphans, rights and responsibilities of citizens, Zakat, Huqooqullah and Huqooq-ul-Ebad, Islamic brotherhood, human community and education for women, had been distributed among 4,806 prayer leaders so that they include these themes in their Friday sermons.