LAHORE, Jan 30: The chief minister has decided to depoliticize the police department and called upon PML-Q MPAs to monitor police performance and give suggestions for its improvement instead of recommending transfers and appointments of their favourites, law minister Raja Basharat told the Punjab Assembly here on Thursday.

The government was taking both short and long-term measures to improve law and order in the province, the minister said, adding that in view of the rising crime graph in the region, the chief minister was himself monitoring the progress of investigation into heinous crimes.

Measures were also being adopted to make the police role against crime more effective without giving the institution more powers, he said.

Assuring the house that appointments and promotions would be made strictly on merit in the police department, he urged the opposition members to put forward their proposals in this regard.

Despite having reservations with regard to certain clauses of the Police Order 2002, the minister said the provincial government had decided to separate investigative, administrative and law-and-order duties, set up special cells to tackle heinous crimes, establish 400 patrol posts in the province, increase the ration allowance of policemen to bring it on a par with that of civil armed forces and allocate funds for payment of dues to heirs of policemen dying in the line of duty.

Raja Basharat said the chief minister had also directed the inspector-general of police to come up with a comprehensive welfare programme like provision of housing for retired policemen.

PPP deputy parliamentary leader Rana Aftab, taking the rostrum, said police reforms had created problems for the masses who now also had to make payments to investigation officers after getting their cases enlisted by greasing the palms of the police station staff concerned.

He claimed that the crime rate in Faisalabad district had soared since the appointment of the incumbent district police officer.

He questioned the use of income being earned by the Police Welfare Foundation from three filling stations in Faisalabad.

He said gambling, sale of liquor and prostitution dens could not be run without police patronage.

Stressing the need for upright officers for checking the upward trend in the crime graph, he said transfer was not adequate punishment for a corrupt official.

PML-N parliamentary leader Rana Sanaullah Khan challenged the minister’s claim that the chief minister was personally monitoring heinous crimes, saying that he had failed to reach Serai Alamgir on the day of MPA Chaudhry Farooq’s murder.

He regretted that the minister was not even authorized to call the home secretary and the IGP to the house when law and order situation in the province was being discussed.

He said peace in society was impossible in the absence of justice and a good political system, which could not be established in a country where violator of a traffic signal was prosecuted and violator of the Constitution rewarded.

Referring to the formation of the PML-Q, he said a group of retired generals had created it to bring the political system under its control.

Rana Sanaullah was allowed to continue his speech despite points of order from treasury benches that he was not limiting his speech to the issue under discussion.

On a call attention notice of opposition leader Qasim Zia, Raja Basharat told the house that four of the 10 accused in Chaudhry Farooq murder case had been arrested while raids were being conducted to round up the rest.

He informed the house that one of the accused, Mehdi, had been killed in an encounter with police.

He said that the respondents were satisfied over the pace of investigation in the case.

Answering a subsidiary question, he said the encounter was genuine and he would present a report in the house to erase suspicions of the opposition benches in this regard.

Denying the allegation that some Gujrat influentials had given shelter to the accused, he said the culprits were rounded up in a forest bordering the AJK.

Earlier, the house adopted two bills, one of which amended the Punjab Office of the Ombudsman Act 1997 to improve efficacy of the office while the other banned the serving of meals in all marriage ceremonies except to a maximum of 300 guests at Walima.