PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly standing committee on home on Monday asked the provincial police to produce details of their officials, who have fallen victim to acts of terrorism over the last couple of years.

The committee met here at the assembly secretariat here Monday and its chairman MPA Zahid Khan Durrani presided over the meeting.

The committee discussed a call attention notice of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPA Shah Mohammad regarding recruitment of legal heir of the deceased police officials.

Mover of the call attention notice told the committee that government should recruit legal heirs of the 321 policemen, who had lost life to terrorism and militancy during the last few years.

He proposed that the government recruit paternal or maternal nephews of the deceased if he doesn’t have son or brother.

The mover said the government should recruit relatives of the deceased officials to boost moral of the affected families.

Officials of the police and law departments opposed his proposal and observed that it could create complications for the government and disputes among legal heirs of the deceased.

Special assistant to the chief minister on law Arif Yousaf told Dawn that the suggestion of the mover was not feasible and majority of the members of the committee opposed it.

He said the police department would follow the existing policy and only son or brother of the deceased policeman would be recruited in the force.

The special assistant said under the policy, it was decided that only children, wife and parents of the deceased would receive financial benefits.

He said police department was directed to provide complete data of the deceased officials in the next meeting of the committee.

Arif Yousaf said after receiving accurate data, the government would begin recruitment.

The committee also discussed a call attention notice of PTI MPA Zareen Zia about lack of facilities for women prisoners in captivity across the province.

It was informed that the post of woman doctor at the Central Jail of Haripur had long been lying vacant.

The mover said the health and prison departments had failed to ensure provision of health facilities to prisoners, especially women.

She said the health department was directed in previous meeting of the standing committee to appoint a woman doctor to the Haripur jail, but to no avail.

It was decided that members of the committee would visit prisons to get firsthand information about facilities provided to prisoners. MPA Shah Hussain Allai, director general (prosecution), and senior officers of the police, home health and law department attended the meeting.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2014