PESHAWAR: A select committee of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday approved the proposed Police Ordinance 2016 without major changes.

Officials and MPAs in the know claimed the committee approved the proposed law after most of the proposed amendments were bulldozed.

The committee met on the premises of the provincial assembly with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the chair and opposition leader Lutfur Rehman and other members in attendance.

Officials insist most of proposed amendments bulldozed

The lawmakers had submitted 78 amendments to more than 42 clauses of the Police Ordinance.

However, most of them were thrown out with the government having its way with the proposed law, lawmakers and officials familiar with the committee’s proceedings told Dawn.

An opposition lawmaker, who wished not to be named, criticised opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman for his pro-government stand in the committee.

Sardar Hussain Babak, parliamentary leader of the major opposition party, Awami National Party, didn’t attend the meeting.

Another cabinet member, Mian Jamsheduddin, who, according to the lawmakers, had moved several crucial amendments to the act, also absented himself from the meeting.

“Even all the opposition members, including their leader, was in cahoots with the chief minister in giving all powers to the inspector general of police,” the lawmaker said, adding that the participants surrendered their power to the police chief.

He said the IG got all the powers, including administrative and financial powers, in the name of operational autonomy, while the amendments proposed by members calling for the removal of IG and his premature transfers were not entertained in the meeting.

The MPA said the IGP also got the transfer and posting powers for the entire police force.

“While the secretary of other departments are empowered to transfer only officers of BS-17, then how you can allow one of them powers to transfer the officers of BS-21 officers,” he said.

The lawmaker added that the pleas for declaring the forensic laboratory an independent entity also met resistance from

the police chief and that the facility was likely to be placed under the police department.

He criticised the conduct of the opposition leader in the meeting saying Lutfur Rehman mostly preferred to remain silent, while other opposition leaders also get their cue from him.

The MPA said the committees agreed to the proposed five percent quota for direct induction of deputy superintendent of police, while they also get a clause, which provided for jail term to those who wrongly accuse police officials of wrongdoings.

Another official, who also attended the meeting, said the government backed off from its stand in the sub-committee’s meeting, where the police had agreed to cede powers to the chief minister.

He said he failed to comprehend as to how opposition and treasury sides agreed to major differences.

The official said the government forcibly withdrew most amendments to the ordinance and didn’t seem ready to listen to anybody.

He said the PTI government did frame the law for its around four years tenure and that there was no need for this law when the government was on the verge of elections.

“The next government had to face its implications,” he said.

Meanwhile, a government statement issued here said the select committee in its third meeting unanimously proposed drastic amendments to the draft police ordinance bill after threadbare discussion.

The bill will be presented in the next meeting of the cabinet. After approval, it will be placed before the provincial assembly for enactment.

The statement said the meeting also decided to make public safety commissions more vibrant, proactive and effective to have vigilance on the police and thus, discouraging misuse of powers and authority.

“To remove flaws in lodging of FIR, the meeting proposed changes in the existing procedure to make it more and more transparent as well as to redress the public grievances in this regard.”

The meeting decided the mode of posting of IGP under which in the absence of the relevant provision for the short listing of probable and finalising of the three probables, the federation will send the whole list wherein the chief minister will pick one amongst the suitable for posting as IG.

The chief minister later told reporters that the laws were made for the welfare of public.

He said his government fully empowered police but there should be a check and balance system to make police force more responsive, efficient and accountable.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2017