HYDERABAD, July 27: Sindh Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui has said that the police force in the province is under strength which is leading to various problems and damaging the image of police.

Deploring a poor state of affairs of the police department, he said that even basic requirements could not be met as 85 per cent of the police budget was spent on salaries.

Speaking to journalists in the circuit house here on Tuesday after a visit to prisons of the city, the minister defended the deployment of the Rangers in Sindh, saying that the force was helping police.

Mr Siddiqui deplored poor infrastructure in police training institutes such as Saeedabad where funds for parade ground were needed. He said that out of Rs10 billion budget for law and order, 85 per cent was spent on salaries of policemen who did not have adequate medical facilities as police hospitals lacked specialist doctors.

To a question that why his party, which had always opposed Rangers' stay in Sindh, was now supporting it, he said that Rangers and police had been used for "state terrorism" in the past by the then president and the prime minister and his party had launched a relentless struggle against excesses with the result that charges were proved against them.

The minister vowed to establish writ of government wherever jirgas were held and added that the government had taken initiatives in Khairpur to contain tribal clashes.

He said that some isolated cases in Karachi could not be described as poor law and order situation and the fact should not be lost sight of that Pakistan was a front-line state in the war against terror.

He said that he would get the Police Order published in Sindhi and Urdu once it was amended and implemented. Referring to conditions in the prisons, he admitted that prisons were overcrowded and said that he had called for expediting works on three prisons.