THE Sindh government is entirely within its rights to seek the provincial assembly’s input before making a decision. This principle applies to almost any kind of decision, and granting yet another extension to the policing powers being used by the Rangers in their Karachi operation is no exception.

The interior minister has wagged his finger angrily at the leadership in Sindh, and much commentary on TV has raised the prospect of governor’s rule if the extension in the powers of the Rangers is not granted immediately.

These suggestions are entirely out of line. What is also not needed are the interior minister’s remarks that he would release a video of Dr Asim Hussain, during which the latter allegedly confesses to all sorts of criminal behaviour.

Take a look: Federal govt spends Rs9bn annually on Sindh Rangers, asserts Nisar

We have seen enough media trials, and it is time for the courts to decide if the Rangers have produced sound reasons for having held the former minister for their full 90 days’ mandate on grounds of suspected terror financing.

Instead of chastising the Sindh government, the interior minister should be looking at how the wide-ranging powers of detention are being used by the Rangers, and whether their exercise is yielding up convictions or not.

Policing powers are a serious matter, and whenever any institution is entrusted with them, it is crucial to ensure that they are being used only for the purpose for which they were granted. In the case of the Rangers operation in Karachi, most people agree that the operation has successfully brought down the crime rate and disbanded many of the large criminal syndicates that had menaced the city for so long.

But over the past few months, too many questions have been raised about the use of these powers to make an automatic renewal subject to debate.

The interior minister’s suggestion to address the reservations of the PPP and the MQM by sitting down and talking may be a sincere attempt to seek a way forward, but he should realise that the right place to do the talking about these issues is the assembly, not the private offices of the interior ministry.

After all, it is the executive powers of the provincial government that are being entrusted to the Rangers, and the assembly has a natural right to debate this. The assembly’s mandate to discuss and vote on the grant of renewal deserves more respect than is being afforded in the debate surrounding the issue.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2015