LAHORE: The Regional Police Officers (RPOs) conference on Wednesday decided to hand over affairs of all the elements enlisted under Fourth Schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act in the province to the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD).

Earlier, the matter was being tackled by the Punjab police.

Approximately, 3,500 suspects mostly belonging to sectarian organisations, religious parties and banned militant outfits in Punjab were being observed in Punjab under Fourth Schedule of the ATA, an insider told Dawn.

He said the RPO conference took the decision to empower CTD to monitor and handle the ‘Fourth Schedulers’ under terrorism act to further tighten noose around them.

The conference also showed a serious concern that nearly 30 banned organisations including Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi with their network were still operating in Punjab and coordinated efforts were needed to eliminate them.

Chaired by Punjab IGP Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera, the conference was attended by all the RPOs concerned besides Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), additional IG (CTD) Rai Tahir and other senior police officers.

Decision will help curb sectarian, terror acts

Started at 1pm the conference discussed long agenda items for five hours.

The IGP also showed his concerns when he was apprised that the crime has increased in Gujranwala and Faisalabad regions.

The provincial capital, however, witnessed decrease in the overall crime, the IGP was informed.

The insider told this reporter that the major decision taken by the RPO conference on Wednesday was in respect of Fourth Schedule.

He said the Fourth Schedule comprises the elements found to be or suspected to be involved in anti-state activities, delivering hate speeches and/or activists of religious outfits not yet banned but related with militancy in any way.

He said the CTD was being empowered to deal with affairs of the elements in the Fourth Schedule after approval by the federal government. The decision would help bring down sectarian violations and terrorism activities in Punjab. Particularly, such activities were being witnessed in Jhang, Chinot and Sahiwal districts.

The insider said the RPO conference also took some decisions for the launch of ‘combing operation’ in Punjab.

During the conference, the IGP snubbed six district police officers (DPOs) for not disbursing investigation cost among the policemen provided to them for Homicide Units.

Meanwhile, a handout issued on Wednesday said the RPO took many decisions regarding the preparation of lists of buyers in other provinces of cars being stolen from Punjab, uploading the photographs of the recovered valuables including vehicles, motorcycles on the website of the Punjab police besides, photographs of missing persons, unidentified dead bodies, domestic servants involved in thefts.The RPO conference also decided to continue the Intelligence Based Operations (IBOs) and police search and sweep operations in the wake of Gulshan-e-Iqbal incident.

To boost the morale, it was decided that on coming Monday all field officers will hold police ‘darbars’ at police lines in their respective regions and districts and it would be the regular feature.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2016