LARKANA, July 2: Provincial Police Officer Jehangir Mirza has said that about 19 tribal disputes have been settled and 37 others will be resolved soon.

He said that the police department was facing law and order problems owing to tribal disputes.

He was talking to newsmen after presiding over a meeting of DPOs of the Larkana range on Saturday.

He said that settlements of disputes had not been arrived at through jirgas.

When journalists cited certain incidents where police officers were fined in jirgas, the PPO said that holding of jirga was unconstitutional. The PPO said that the Sindh police was still clueless into serial killings of policemen in Karachi.

He said that a team had been formed to see it from different angles and arrest the criminals.

He said that in earlier cases police had found criminals and easily reached them but this time we were still trying to identify the killers. “We are seriously working on it”, he said.

He said that there was a shortage of policemen in Jacobabad, Larkana, Kashmor and Qambar-Shahdadkot districts.

He said that the districts were created without getting new police force sanctioned for them.

“We are trying to get strength soon and the official procedure in this connection will take some time”, he said.

He said that he was optimistic to get more force to surmount the shortage in the new districts.

The PPO connected appointing of DSPs as SPs in investigation wing of police with shortage of police officers.

Replying to a question regarding the influx of criminals from Balochistan into Sindh and escaping of outlaws from Sindh to Balochistan after committing crimes, he said that we were trying to establish a force for controlling criminals’ movement on the border.

He said that three police stations and 25 police posts had been completed along the border and Rangers had been deployed in the area.

He referred to meetings between Sindh and Balochistan police officers for effective measures and said the chain of coordination among them would continue.