November 21, 2006	Tuesday	Shawwal 28, 1427

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LAHORE, Nov 20: The Punjab home department has moved a summary to Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi to seek amendments to law for bringing highways police patrolling posts under its complete administrative control, it is learnt on Sunday.

Pleading that Punjab police department has failed to look after the affairs of the patrolling posts—a project initiated under the CM’s directives to make highways in the province safe and secure—the summary proposes to withdraw their control from Punjab police IG. Instead, it recommends changes in law to hand over the administrative and field control of the patrolling posts to the home department.

However, sources in CM secretariat told Dawn that the move was a part of ongoing power struggle between the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) and the District Management Group (DMG). This time the move was floated by a group of officers belonging to the DMG, serving in the Punjab government, especially three senior ones, believed to be very close to the CM, the sources said. The same group, they said, had, in March this year, also proposed induction of army officers to post them as in charges of patrolling posts in each district. The move could not be matured, mainly due to legal and administrative problems.

The sources said only purpose behind such moves was to strengthen the DMG, which lost most of its powers after the police department was made independent under Police Order, 2002.

The only department the home department had retained after the Police Order was Punjab prisons department, they said, and questioned what reforms had been introduced in its working. The only interest was to retain powers and the huge budget of the patrolling posts, the sources said.

The summary proposes that the post of DIG, highways patrolling posts, be converted into DG patrolling posts, which would be headed by some senior officer of the home department. It has also recommended major changes in administrative set up of the patrolling posts at district level.

The CM secretariat has sent the summary to Punjab government law department for approval. The law department, however, has raised objections with regard to legal status of the summary, mainly the sections related to empowering legally the home department to run the affairs of the patrolling posts.

Sub-section 1 of section 10 of the summary seeks changes to section 54 of CrPC to provide a legal cover to the home department to independently head the patrolling posts, the sources quoted a part of the summary. The section 54 of the CrPC as a federal law empowers police to exercise power to arrest, to investigate and to keep somebody in custody and so on.

However, the sources said one of the major objections raised by the law department was that no provincial authority could make changes in the section 54 of the CrPC, a federal law. If somebody did it, it would be illegal, the sources added.

The earlier move in March to give the patrolling posts in the command of army officers was undone almost at last stage. A board had, even, been set up to start recruiting process of the army officers in the patrolling posts. Punjab home secretary, DG monitoring, Punjab IG and DIG highways patrolling posts, besides some other senior officers, were members of the board.