LANDI KOTAL: As many as 300 more educated local youth will be inducted into the police in Khyber tribal district in addition to 3,750 personnel of the Khasadar and Levies forces integrated into the force recently.

The inductions will take place after a thoroughscrutiny by a task force established by the government to gradually transform the previoustribal force into the regular police force.

Khyber district police officer Mohammad Iqbal told Dawn on Friday in Shah Kas Levies Centre that the new recruitment would be made in line with the KP police recruitment formula.

“We have initiated a process of inducting educated young people from the newly-merged Khyber district into the police force to improve its performance and capacitybesides gradually phasing out the older uneducated and inexperienced lot,” he said.

Mr Iqbal said the on-job training of the newly-integrated tribal police force’s personnel had been launched as they were faced with tough challenges due to low literacy level of most Khasadar and Levies personnel with little or no professional knowhow about investigations and judicial process.

DPO seeks early posting of DSPs to tribal districts

“The training branch of the Central Police Office, Peshawar, has been tasked with proper training of the entire tribal police force in all merged tribal districts, which will be completed in different phases in the next few years,” he said.

The Khyber DPO said as many as 310 FIRs had so far been registered in three subdivisions of Khyber tribal district and challan was issued to 156 of them that had reached the trial stage in local courts.

“The registration of over 300 FIRs only in Khyber district is a testimony to the trust of the tribal people in the new police system,” he said.

The DPO expressed optimism about the success of the police system in tribal districts and said the existing police personnel (previously Khasadar and Levies forces’) were eager to learn and were responding well to the new responsibilities.

“At present, we are faced with the problems of discipline, communication and issues like typical police jargons as these are new to the tribal force. However, they will overcome them all with the passage of time and through proper training,” he said.

Mr Iqbal said at times, he, too, struggled to communicate with 3,750 personnel of the newly-integrated police force due to their naiveté to new rules and regulations.

“With the temporary abolition of the post of deputy superintendent of police, there is now a large gap with the DPO dealing with junior officers of the rank of sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors,” he said.

The DPO said with the temporary abolition of the post of DSP, the supervision and monitoring mechanism had hugely affected. He said the provincial government should draft a policy on top priority basis regarding the induction of DSPs in all newly merged tribal districts either through the public service commission or transfer from other districts to fill the manpower gap on emergency basis.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2020