PESHAWAR, Sept 3: Police and the Home Departments of Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan have locked horns over the issue of wielding administrative and financial powers given under the Police Order, 2002, as President Musharraf has given instructions to implement this order by end of September.

Interviews with senior police and government officials revealed intense jockeying for power as the deadline set for the implementation of Police Order, 2002 drew nearer.

The federal government convened a meeting of police chiefs and chief secretaries of all provinces in Islamabad on Tuesday which would be followed up by another high-level meeting to  be chaired by Federal Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat on September 10.

The meetings were preceded by a visit to the capitals of four provinces by Director-General National Police Bureau Aftab Nabi.

Mr Nabi visited Peshawar last week and met senior government officials to oversee the implementation of the reform process.

“Sindh is the only province which has made significant headway in implementing police reforms. Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan are debating whether police should be an independent entity or an attached department of the Home Department,” a senior official said.

“A resistance is going on to change the status-quo,” a police official said, acknowledging the NWFP and Punjab had raised the issue, seeking permission of the federal government to amend the Police Order to suit their own needs.

An official said the problem stemmed from the fact that the police used to be a provincial subject, but had now effectively been made  into a federal issue after the promulgation of the Police Order, 2002. The provinces could not make any changes in the law without prior approval of the prime minister, he added.

The official said Punjab and the NWFP were banking on section 184 of the Police Order which says that provinces may, with  prior approval of the chief executive of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, amend, vary or modify any provision of the Police Order relating to the province on the basis of their specific requirements and circumstances.

He said the police was pushing hard for the implementation of the Police Order and wanted that the IGPs be declared ex-officio secretaries of a separate and independent police department with full administrative and financial powers.

He added, Punjab and the NWFP, although not averse to the transfer of administrative and financial powers, wanted the police to remain an attached department of their respective home departments.

The rationale given for making the demand, said the official, was that law and order was essentially the responsibility of the Home Department and stripping it of this major duty would mean that it was left with nothing.

The police, however, opposed this view and said that under the devolution plan, law and order was now the responsibility of the district Nazims and not of the Home Department.

In the NWFP, the Home Department which also used to oversee tribal affairs has already been stripped of this responsibility. Governor NWFP Lt-Gen Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has made a separate Fata secretariat headed by a secretary to look after the seven federally administered tribal areas and frontier regions.

The police point out a reference to Section 11(5) of the Police Order which clearly stipulates that the provincial police officer shall have administrative and financial powers as ex-officio secretary to the provincial government.

Police officials argue that every time something goes wrong they are held responsible and therefore as a matter of principle they should also have the authority to award punishments and make order transfers and postings of officials.

“Nowhere was a home secretary sacked because something had gone wrong. In the NWFP, when religious zealots pulled down billboards, the IGP was sacked. In Balochistan, following a terrorist attack on an imambargah, the DIG and SSP were removed. If law and order is the responsibility  of the home departments, it’s their heads and not ours which should have been rolled,” commented one police official.

“The police also want additional resources to carry out further recruitments and buy equipments. The provinces have said they do not have enough resources to foot the bill. This is another sticking point,” the official said.

A senior government official told Dawn a summary containing the viewpoint of the police as well as the Home Department was being submitted to the NWFP chief minister.

But an apprehensive police official said it was highly unlikely that any of the three provinces lagging in implementing the Police Order would be able to fully implement it by the given deadline.