QUETTA, March 27: The Balochistan government has imposed a ban on all religious and political processions for three months in all over the province with immediate effect. However, there will be no ban on public meetings.

The decision in this account was taken at the provincial cabinet meeting held here on Saturday that was presided over by Chief Minister Jam Mir Mohammad Yousuf.

The cabinet discussed law and order situation with special reference to the recent Quetta killings and torching of shops, commercial establishments and other properties and observed that situation was not appropriate for allowing religious and political processions in the province.

"No religious and political procession would be allowed in the province during three months in the larger interest of the people," the cabinet decided and hoped that all political and religious parties would extend their full cooperation to the government.

"There will be no ban on holding public meetings in the province," cabinet further decided.

The cabinet while taking serious notice of the recent subversion activities and damaging the national installations in different areas of the province has decided to take action against police and administrative officers of the concerned districts in future. "Strict action would be taken against district police officer, district and assistant administrative officer if such incident took place in their areas and they failed to arrest the miscreants," cabinet warned.

Cabinet discussed the proposal of dividing Chaghai district into two districts and decided to establish Dalbandin a new district of the province and in this connection official notification would be issued soon.

Referring to wheat shortage in the province it was decided that provincial food department would purchase 100,000 bags of wheat from Jhal Magsi district while Pasco would procure wheat from Nasirabad and Jaffrabad districts.

The cabinet reviewed over all law and order situation of the province and development schemes and expressed dissatisfaction over the pace of work on these projects and asked the concerned departments to accelerate the pace of work on development schemes.

The meeting was informed that tender has been invited for purchasing MRI machine for civil hospital that would cost around Rs180 million. The government has set a committee that would take decision in this connection.

The Cabinet was also briefed about the Gwadar Master Plan and performance of the Gwadar Development Authority.