KARACHI: The Sindh police have forwarded a proposal to the provincial government seeking financial assistance to help its officers and personnel to buy weapons for their personal security as the law enforcement agency plans to make it mandatory for every policeman in Karachi to carry arms at all times, it emerged on Thursday.

Sources at the central police office (CPO) said that a meeting chaired by the acting Sindh IG, Ghulam Haider Jamali, discussed various measures to ensure personal security of policemen because of serious threats to their lives in Karachi.

The meeting — attended by all additional IGs, three zonal DIGs of Karachi, DIG traffic, senior officials of the special branch and specialised units — agreed upon the proposal for personal arms for policemen and decided to forward it to the authorities concerned, said the source.

“The idea is to take all due measures for the security of policemen. There are a few wings within the police department where personnel are not issued weapons or low-ranking officials of those wings are not entitled to carry arms. They now all need to carry arms,” said a source privy to the proceedings of the meeting.

He said the policemen associated with the special branch, crime branch and traffic section were usually not issued official weapons as they were not entitled to carry arms.

But the security situation, he said, had compelled the police authorities to devise a scheme to help them buy their own weapons.

“And for that purpose, a summary has been forwarded to the Sindh government to seek financial assistance for those policemen, who are willing to buy their personal weapons for their security,” said another source.

“The help can be in different forms such as an easy loan facility for policemen and exemption from taxes on buying arms. The policemen can also be offered to buy weapons on easy instalments which can be deducted from their salaries,” said the source.

This, he said, would help all police personnel, including officers and officials of the special branch, crime branch and traffic section to have weapons. The meeting decided if the proposal was approved the policemen would be required to buy pistols and carry them, he said.

Last year, the Sindh government released more than a billion rupees for the police department to purchase security ‘assets’ to better control internal disturbances in Karachi.

For 2014-15 the Sindh government announced a 20 per cent increase in the budget for security in the provincial budget with a ‘special Rs4.65 billion allocation’ for operational needs of the police.

However, the officials argued the budget allocations were meant to be consumed by the already-decided heads and the proposal for personal weapons for the policemen did not fall under any of them.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2014