LAHORE: Most members of a 17-member committee have ‘strongly opposed’ the proposal of Prime Minister Imran Khan to merge the Border Military Police (BMP) and the Balochistan Levies (BL) into the Punjab police.

A heated debate took place at a brainstorming session chaired by Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat at the Civil Secretariat here on Wednesday. The meeting was arranged to evolve mechanism to hand over control of nearly 10,000 square kilometre tribal belt of DG Khan and Rajanpur to the police for effective law enforcement.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) MPAs and the heads of the tribal community of these two districts opposed the proposal, an official told Dawn.

DG Khan and Rajanpur have tribal families such as Leghari, Khosa, Qaisarani, Buzdar, Mazari and Lund who have strong influence.

In Wednesday’s meeting, the official said, the elders of the tribes (being members of the committee) even turned down the suggestion of IGP Rao Sardar Ali Khan to appoint a police officer as commandant in the first phase to give him administrative control of the tribal areas of DG Khan and Rajanpur.

The IG was of the view that the committee should at least give approval for the posting of an SP as commandant to run the affairs of the tribal areas of these two districts and fresh recruitment of the armed personnel.

A tribal representative (the MPA) said it would not be a wise decision to merge the BMP and the BL into the Punjab police merely on the basis of a recent video clip which showed some notorious bandits killing two local residents. The MPA, the official said, raised a question about the crime rate in Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Lahore. He also suggested that if the Punjab Police controlled the crime in these districts, the MPAs would not oppose the merger plan.

The MPAs from south Punjab also expressed displeasure over not being invited to the meeting the prime minister held a couple of months ago to discuss the proposal, said the official.

The official said the deputy commissioner of a district supported the other MPAs.

The Punjab government had formed the 17-member committee to devise a mechanism to give administrative control of the tribal areas of the two districts to the Punjab police when Ladi gang kidnapped and killed two residents besides kidnapping policemen.

The committee members are Punjab Livestock Minister Hasnain Bahadar Dreshak, Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Mohammad Mazari, irrigation minister Mohammad Mohsin Leghari, MPAs Ahmed Ali Dareshak, Khwaja Mohammad Daud Sulemani, Javed Akhtar, the additional chief secretary home (Punjab), the additional chief secretary (South Punjab), IGP Rao Sardar Ali Khan, Local Government and Communication Secretary Noorul Amin Mengal, DG Khan RPO Faisal Rana, DG Khan’s ex-political assistant Hamza Salik, and deputy commissioners of DG Khan and Rajanpur besides representatives of tribal elders.

The committee will present its report to Prime Minister Imran Khan on Oct 31, the official said.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2021