PESHAWAR: ‘Security along tribal belt to be tightened’
By Zulfiqar Ali
PESHAWAR, March 22: The federal government has decided to enhance security along the borders of tribal agencies and the settled areas of the NWFP to curb unwanted activities in the province. Sources said the decision had been taken in the wake of growing influence of militants and continuing acts of sabotage in the southern parts of the province.
The interior ministry had ordered setting up of more checkpoints of the Frontier Constabulary along the South Waziristan Agency’s border with Tank district to check the movement of miscreants, an official said.
Sources said the provincial police chief had recently informed a meeting in Islamabad that the law and order situation in the tribal areas had negative fallout on the adjoining Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts.
They said the existing police force in the districts was inadequate to cope with the emerging law and order situation and additional paramilitary force was needed in this regard.
During the meeting, they said, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao emphasised revamping of the security system in the tribal areas by merging Khasaddar and Levies forces.
Under a programme chalked out by the government, about 4,000 Levies personnel had been trained in Bajaur, Kurram and Orakzai agencies, they said.
Officials in the NWFP Governor’s Fata Secretariat said they had asked for recruitment of Levies in the North and South Waziristan, Khyber and Mohmand agencies and the six Frontier Regions in the NWFP. Presently, Khasaddars are assisting political authorities in these areas.
The secretary for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas had informed the interior ministry that training of Khasaddars would “indirectly mean to train potential enemy, because they are in fact hostages of their respective tribes rather than a force to establish the writ of the government,” the officials said.
Owing to the worsening situation, the Tank district administration had requested provision of 20 FC platoons, the sources said.
“The district police have neither resources nor capability to combat militancy in the area,” an official said.
He said the number of police in the Tank district was 300, and in Dera Ismail Khan 1,000. The 1,300 police have to guard a population of more than 1.9 million over about 9,000 square kilometres.
The interior minister directed the authorities concerned to track down miscreants who had been expelled from tribal areas on administrative grounds. He also urged the political agents in North and South Waziristan agencies to assume a proactive role.
The sources said that it was pointed out during the meeting that the major cause of the unrest in the tribal areas was poor governance and emergence of the so-called Taliban was a phenomenon having roots in the mismanaged society, where the commanders had assumed the role of ‘chief robbers’.
