PESHAWAR: The decision by a handful youth of community police in Bahrain, Swat, to have a meeting for a future strategy for their rights have shaken the nerves of the district police administration and in return it is trying to pressurise the poor youth, who had joined community police back in early 2010 mainly owing to employment and acute poverty.

A couple of days ago a few personnel of the so-called community police in upper Swat decided to hold a meeting so as to move their plights in the corridors of the power in the wake of the August 27 news that the force will not be given any extension beyond December this year owing to its ‘inefficiency’.

“They are on contract basis and must obey what they have signed in the contracts. If any one of them is unhappy with the current status of payment and ‘privileges’ he must immediately resign,” said DIG Malakand, when contacted.

“Government employees cannot hold meetings, nor can they interact with media,” he said. He was told that the gathering was just a peaceful meeting of those youth, who had been left to live in the lurch. They have no political agenda and will certainly not create any problem of law and order.

Sad, these youth are not allowed to even hold a peaceful meeting and exercise their basic rights whereas we usually see teachers and doctors go on strike for increase in their salaries. Similarly, many teachers are seen playing the roles of cronies of MPAs and MNAs. Since the teachers, doctors or other officials have backing of political representatives so consequently they are more equal than others. But the helpless community police have no political force at their back as they were not recruited on the recommendations of the representatives.

Community policing was introduced in Malakand division soon after the military operation in 2009. The idea apparently was to fill the gap in the regular police department and check terrorism on community level. About 7,000 youth and retired police and army officials were recruited in the community police. This was a time of complete uncertainty and chaos in the wake of insurgency. The regular police were the first victim of the insurgency. Hundreds of brave policemen were brutally murdered. This demoralised those who somehow survived in the conflict.

The gap had to be filled; and recruitment of community police on contract basis was the immediate answer. Fortunately this worked well.

The new recruited youth were trained by army; and in return community police provided a considerable back-up to army engaged in war with militants.

This was a time when army in Malakand needed people from the community who knew the respective social norms, customs, languages and geography of the area; and would also entertain the trust of the security forces.

It was well evident then that the army was a bit reluctant to trust the regular police due to the widespread notoriety of the latter.

In the days of the strict security check and search operations community police greatly helped local communities by relieving people from unnecessary security check and consequently saved many people from humiliation. It was refreshing for the travellers and dwellers when an official responsible for security spoke the same language with the same tone as theirs. Each military checkpost was manned by community policemen along with army jawans.

The community police are generally deemed more amicable by the people. It might be because they are from the community. They are also deemed less corrupt than the regular police. They performed duties in a time of high turmoil and risk. Many of them even did not succumb to the pressure from their mothers and families as fear of militants was then higher than it is now.

Another advantage of community police over the regular one is their mostly apolitical appointments. The recruitment of community police was mostly conducted by the army hence there was less chance of political favouritism. Perhaps this is the cause that today nobody seem concerned about them and they have virtually been left in the lurch. An ideal is an ideal. The community police are not above all wrongs.

They have their weaknesses. They must be corrupt and inefficient. But this does not mean that the rest are efficient and less corrupt.

The army in Malakand division especially in Swat wants transition of powers to civil administration. It is indeed a high need but before that all the stakeholders must think of enhancing the capacity of the civil administration rather than dismissing the ones, who have rendered services in a time when there was chaos in the whole region.

There are plenty of examples where issues of law and order left to the civil administration and unfortunately the results were a mess. A former general officer commandant of Malakand expressed grave concern over the slower process of transition of power to civil administration. Permanent deployment of military in every matter is no solution. Under these circumstances community police need more capacity building and more incentives. They are fixed with a pay of Rs10,000 a month without any additional bonuses. In upper Swat community police have not been paid their salaries for the last two months. On the other hand those, who have been recruited in the regular cadre, get more than three times what the community police get.

In this period four budgets came but the hapless community police got no increase nor did they get any regular status.

They just want to be regularised with the usual increase in monthly pay. Many have left the job already and about 3,000 personnel still render services in Malakand.

The plight of the community police needs immediate attention of the provincial government. They are now on the fence and their fate must be decided soon.