Special police for protection of minorities

ISLAMABAD: For the protection of minorities and their worship places, a special police force will be raised in all provinces and the Centre, reveals Dr Shoaib Suddle, chairman of the One Man Commission on Minorities.

Instructions have also been issued to all provincial police chiefs to put in place a special monitoring system to check forceful conversions among the minorities. Presently, there are almost 30,000 posts reserved for minorities in all the government departments all over Pakistan except for Balochistan. The commission, which was constituted on the order of the Supreme Court, has directed all the governments to ensure the filling of these posts at the earliest, Dr Shoaib said.

The commission was approached by The News to inquire about measures taken till now for the protection and wellbeing of minorities. The One Man Commission has been able to retrieve data about vacant posts against 5pc minority quota from the federal, provincial and GB governments except from Balochistan.

“A total number of 29,692 posts are now available against five minority quota for appointment of minority candidates”, says a report, shared exclusively with this correspondent by the One Man Commission.

The report further notes that directions have been given to the federal and provincial governments to ensure the enforcement of the relevant policy directives regarding reservation of quota for minorities in Pakistan. In addition, time-bound processed-based recruitment has already been started in all the provinces, says the report.

The One Man Commission has directed respective governments to prepare a ministries/divisions/departments/agency-wise time-bound processed-based recruitment plan by appointing a Focal Person and advertise vacant posts under intimation to the One Man Commission. Though the provincial governments have been slow, the process of recruitment has started recently, states the report.