HARIPUR: District police officer Kashif Aftab Abbasi on Friday dissolved the liaison councils of all police stations here and de-notified its members.

The development came as the DPO was not satisfied with the performance of the panels formed under Section 47 of the KP Police Act, 2017, a few years ago, according to a statement issued by his office.

Under the law, 70 per cent of the liaison council members are elected members of the village and neighbourhood councils, while the rest are the people of high repute and good integrity.

The councils are tasked with helping the police control crimes and maintain law and order, informing them about tenants and law and order situation in their respective areas, and ensure the registration of new tenants.

DPO action comes over poor performance of councils

Their nomenclature received criticism from the relevant circles, which demanded the reconstitution of those panels.

While dissolving the liaison councils, the DPO directed all subdivision police officers to find new council members, who are politically neutral and uncontroversial and want to identify criminals for police crackdown in their respective areas.

LAND RECOVERED: Deputy commissioner Mughees Sanaullah has said that the local authorities had recovered 165 kanals of commercial and industrial land in Haripur city and surrounding areas from illegal occupants during the last two weeks.

He told reporters here the other day that the local administration cracked down on encroachments from Jan 27 to Feb 16 on the people’s growing complaints and in line with the provincial government’s directives.

The deputy commissioner said the illegal occupants had put up shops and commercial markets on the government’s land and didn’t voluntarily remove encroachments despite receiving repeated warnings.

He said that the recovered land valued Rs793.16 million and included 135 kanals of industrial land in Hattar and Khalabat townships, 18 kanals of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Highway Authority’s land and over 12 kanals of the tehsil municipal administration’s land.

Mr Sanaullah claimed in order to address traffic mess on the GT Road on the Afaq Hotel-Government Postgraduate College section, the authorities was removing cemented

slabs illegally built by shopkeepers on the roadside drains.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2022