March 07, 2008	Friday	Safar 28, 1429

PESHAWAR, March 6: Future of the Provincial Safety Commission is in jeopardy as the NWFP government has decided to amend some articles of the Police Order 2002 which is likely to further delay convening of its inaugural meeting.

The government has, so far, miserably failed to hold even its inaugural meeting for the last four years since the formation of the safety commission.

A five-member provincial task force with finance minister as its chairman has been formed to submit its recommendations to the government within seven to ten days.

A police official, pleading anonymity, told Dawn that the chief secretary had objected to Section-74 (2) of the police order as being head of all law enforcing agencies -- police, Frontier Constabulary, Frontier Corps, Khassadars and political administrations – as there was no mention about his role in the matters pertaining to the provincial public safety and Police Complaints Commission.

Composition of the commission was seriously flawed as the chief secretary, home secretary and inspector general of police, who are responsible for maintenance of law and order situation, were neither members nor co-opted members of the commission.

The commission, the source said, without the high ranking officials as its members would be unable to get the desired objectives.

Formation of the task force by the home department has drawn an immediate attention of the independent members of the provincial safety commission, whose convener Kifayatullah Jan Khattak in a letter to the chief minister has strongly opposed the proposal for amendments in the police order.

He reportedly said that under Article-75 of the police order, the provincial home minister was already ex-officio chairman of the safety commission and, therefore, there was

no need of the chief secretary, IG or home secretary as its members.

The taskforce, he feared, would spoil the very objectives of the law by creating impediments in the way of smooth implementation of the police order.

In the absence of the members of provincial assembly, he said, the six independent members had the powers to run the affairs of the commission, adding that 50 per cent of the six members (means 3 members) could requisite the commission’s meeting.

He said the home minister under Article-83(2) of the police order should convene a meeting of the commission without any further delay so that natural course of the law contained in the order was not impeded and the objective of the law was not defeated on account of delay, caused due to a small legal flaw, real or supposed.