PESHAWAR, July 14: A high-level meeting to improve inter-provincial coordination and facilitate the arrest and transfer of criminals between the Frontier and Punjab police was held here on Monday at Police Club.

It discussed steps to curb the menace of car-lifting, kidnapping for ransom and terrorist activities taking place in both the provinces, said an official statement.

The meeting identified major areas of concern which further aggravated the law and order situation. Participants of the meeting observed that highly-organized gangs of criminals were operating in the provinces.

They also observed that police could not succeed in its efforts to curb crime unless both the provinces were benefited from the experience of each other.

The participants decided to work out a mechanism for strict surveillance in the bordering districts of the two provinces. Coordinated efforts were also agreed upon to bust the gangs of criminals and check their activities.

The meeting also agreed that each of the two provinces would form a police committee headed by additional IGPs.

It was suggested that the committees would further make its sub-committees to identify the routs of concern and suggest remedy for plugging these routes.

The participants also decided that such meetings would take place between the two police departments regularly.

The Punjab police were represented by Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Syed Masood Shah, Additional IGP (Investigation Branch) Irfan Mehmood, Additional IGP (CID) Tariq Pervaz, DIG (Rawalpindi Region) Israr Ahmed, CCPO Lahore Khalid Farooq, DIG (Gujranwala Region) Malik Muhammad Iqbal, AIG (Operation) Kalb-i-Abbas and others.

From the NWFP police, the meeting was attended by IGP Muhammad Riffat Pasha, Additional IGP (Investigation) Masood Ahmed Paracha, Chief of Capital City Police Tanvir-ur-Haq Sipra, DIG (Bannu) Amir Hamza Masood, DIG (Kohat) Ghulam Muhammad Khan, DIG (Special Branch) Khalid Masood, SSP (Mardan) Liaqat Ali Khan, AIG (CID) Salahuddin, AIG Gen Malik Saad Khan and SP (Nowshera) Feroz Shah.