PESHAWAR, May 4: Amendments proposed to the Police Order 2002 would reverse the entire police reforms started under the Asian Development Bank's funded Access to Justice Programme, said the chairman of the provincial coordination committee of the district public safety commissions, Advocate Attaullah Khan.
"By including MNAs and MPAs in the district public safety commissions, the present government will further politicize the police which is against the basic objectives of police reforms," he added.
Talking to newsmen here on Tuesday, Mr Khan said that the inclusion of the Police Order 2002 in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution was aimed at providing protection to the law from any change which would be against its spirit.
He said at present the federal government could not amend the law without getting it approved from the president. However, he regretted that during a recent meeting chaired by President Pervez Musharraf the approval was given for certain amendments which were against the basic spirit of police reforms.
Mr Khan said that a meeting of the coordination committee would soon be convened for evolving a future line of action. He said they would decide what would be their response once proposed amendments were incorporated in the Police Order.
"The colonial era Police Act of 1961 was replaced with the Police Order 2002 to rid police of political figures' influence so that they could perform their functions effectively," Mr Khan said, adding "the inclusion of MNAs and MPAs in the district commissions will jeopardize functions of these bodies."
Mr Khan said that since the establishment of district public safety commissions in the province, these bodies had been facing multiple problems which created hindrance to their performance.
He said that basic facilities, including office, transport, telephone, office assistant, etc had not been provided to district commissions. Instead of providing facilities to commissions, the chairman said the government was now amending the law which would further multiply problems.
