Interior ministry rejects Sindh govt’s summary granting extension to
paramilitary force; Chandio says there is no justification for doing so
ISLAMABAD: The Interior Ministry has rejected a summary, approved by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, granting extension in the Rangers stay in Karachi with special policing powers, while the Sindh adviser on information said that there was no justification for rejecting the summary.
According to private TV channel sources, legal experts of the Interior Ministry reviewed the summary and rejected it as ‘it did not meet the legal standards’. According to sources, a meeting at the Interior Ministry was held on Tuesday in which the summary, sent by the Sindh government regarding the powers of the Rangers, was reviewed.
The legal experts said the notification of the Sindh government did not fulfil the legal requirement under Article 147 of the Constitution. The sources said that the approved summary had legal and constitutional issues.
Sources said that restricting the Rangers’ special powers to Karachi was unconstitutional. Murad Ali Shah, in a bid to end the persisting tense relations and a row between the Sindh government and the Rangers, had signed the summaries for extending the stay of the Sindh Rangers in the province by one year, and extending the special policing powers of the paramilitary force in Karachi for 90 days.
The federal government, meanwhile, expressed its resentment of the provincial government for not extending the Rangers policing powers to the whole of Sindh.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, addressing a press conference on Monday, had expressed the Centre’s resentment for not extending the Rangers’ policing powers to the whole of Sindh.
He said that if the paramilitary force’s policing powers were not approved for the whole province then they will consider other options in this regard. -- SABAH
Our correspondent adds: Sindh Information Advisor Moula Bakhsh Chandio has said that “the path of confrontational politics” adopted by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will not augur well for him.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the provincial information advisor alleged that the interior minister had been on the warpath regarding political, constitutional and legal matters of Sindh province.
Chandio said that there was no justification for rejecting the summary sent by the Sindh government for giving special policing powers to the Rangers in Karachi as such special powers had been delegated to the Rangers on several occasions in the past in a similar manner.
He questioned the interpretation of Article 147 of the Constitution made by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, saying that such an unreasonable interpretation of the article in question had never been done previously by the interior minister.
The information advisor said he failed to understand why the interior minister had been attempting to force the country towards confrontational politics.
Meanwhile, PPP Senator Saeed Ghani said in a statement that the Sindh government used to give special powers to Sindh Rangers in accordance with the decisions of the All Parties Conference (held in September 2013 with the prime minister in the chair) and resolutions of the Sindh Assembly on the subject. The PPP senator said that the Sindh chief minister was answerable to the people of Sindh and to the elected assembly of the province since the CM had been taking decisions in accordance with the authority vested in him by the provincial assembly.
He said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had started considering himself as viceroy of the country while dealing with the provinces.
He said the interior minister had no authority to deploy and give powers to the Rangers in the province as the Sindh government had all the authority to deploy Rangers wherever it deemed it necessary.
He said that Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan could sabotage the national consensus built on the issue of war against terrorism.
Meanwhile, talking to newsmen on a separate occasion, Sindh Senior Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said that special policing powers had been delegated to Rangers for Karachi only as the law and order situation in other districts of the province had been relatively better.
He said the services of Sindh Rangers could be invoked in any part of the country wherever law and order and peace situation got worsened.
He said that the targeted operation in Karachi against criminals and terrorists had been launched after consensus on the issue had been developed among all the concerned political parties.
He said that the targeted operation in Karachi would continue until complete restoration of the law and order situation in the city.
The senior Sindh minister nullified the impression created by a section of the media that the Sindh CM had been changed owing to the controversy surrounding extension of special policing powers of Rangers in Karachi.
