LAHORE: The Punjab government has extended the jurisdiction of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Punjab to across the DG Khan region, including the highly sensitive Koh-e-Suleman region touching boundaries of three provinces, with a prime objective to counter insurgency.

Apart from Dera Ghazi Khan, the region borders certain areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

The Punjab police chief issued a notification in this respect in pursuant to the approval granted by the provincial cabinet under the Chief Minister’s `Safe Punjab’ vision.

The CTD will now operate in all the districts of Dera Ghazi Khan division — DG Khan, Muzaffargarh, Layyah, and Rajanpur.

Punjab police chief Dr Usman Anwar told Dawn the prime objective of increasing the jurisdiction of the CTD was to counter terror activities.

“The region-in-question houses some terrorism-infested areas where the authorities believed that highly professional officials of the CTD could better fight the outlaws”, the IG said.

He said this is a challenging task to establish police stations in these high-risk areas of South Punjab which also required huge financial resources.

“Consequent to these reasons, the Punjab government has initiated a move to give a key role to the CTD to operate and counter terrorists,” the Punjab police chief said.

As per the notification, Rajanpur tehsil (excluded area) has also been placed under the jurisdiction of CTD beside the tehsil Koh-e-Suleman of DG Khan following the recommendations from the home department and subsequent to approval granted by the provincial government.

An official privy to the information declared it a significant development saying that a first move in this respect was initiated by the Punjab Home Department in 2024 in order to extend the scope of the CTD to 12,000 square kilometre tribal area of Koh-e-Sulaiman region.

Under the initiative, he said, the department had proposed to extend the scope of CTD along with the Punjab Border Military Police and Baloch Levies in the sensitive areas where multiple terrorist organisations including Balochistan Liberation Army and Balochistan Republican Army were carrying out activities beside many other dangerous criminals.

According to the higher authorities, a majority of the people from local tribes were recruited for the Border Military Police which lacked the capability to fight terrorists and gangs armed with sophisticated weapons.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2025