PA committee to act as bridge between Sindh govt and police

Amid reports of a widening gulf between the Sindh government and the provincial police after the passing of a new police law in the province, with the former trying to assert its authority over the latter, the Sindh Assembly’s Standing Committee on Home Department has announced that it will act as a bridge between the two.

The standing committee met on Monday in the Committee Room of the assembly building with MPA Faryal Talpur of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in the chair.

Home Secretary Abdul Kabir Kazi briefed the committee members about the overall law and order situation in the province. Briefing journalists after the meeting, the chairperson of the Standing Committee, Faryal Talpur, said the committee had asked the authorities concerned to take action against the sale of toxic home-brewed liquor and gutka in the province.

She said it had come to the observation of the committee members that the business of toxic liquor had been continuing in Sindh during the sacred month of Ramazan. Talpur said that the authorities concerned should take action against the trade of gutka as the chewable form of tobacco had been causing oral cancer and other fatal diseases among its users.

She said that the Standing Committee would try its best to ensure that the inspector general of the police attended the next meeting of the committee to brief its participants about the steps taken by the police to prevent the sale and purchase of toxic liquor and gutka in the province.

She said they would work along with the civil society to tackle the menace of gutka and toxic liquor. She lamented that the poisonous liquor was brewed on a domestic basis in houses. She added that many households had been affected due to the menace of consuming poisonous liquor and gukta.

MPA Talpur noted that producers and sellers of gukta were arrested but later they got freed. She said that producers of poisonous homemade liquor and gutka were in the habit of shifting their business from one city to another.

The chairperson of the Standing Committee expressed her opinion that the Sindh Police had been working independently for the first time though incidents of street crime did occur in Karachi. She said that every quarter concerned had to work for the improvement of the law and order situation in the province.

To a question, she said Karachi had been replete with problems and criminal activities were also one of the major issues of the province. Others who attended the Standing Committee meeting were Sindh Information and Law Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab, MPAs Qasim Soomro, Shamim Mumtaz, Noor Ahmed Bhurgri, Ghanwer Ali Khan Isran, Syed Zulfikar Shah, Farrukh Shah and others. Imprisoned PPP MPA Sharjeel Inam Memon also attended the meeting after the issuance of his production orders by the assembly secretariat.