MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 1: The Azad Kashmir police are facing a host of problems in improving the standard of its services mainly because of severe resource crunch, Dawn learnt from reliable sources here on Monday.
The scarcity of funds is also hampering the implementation in the AJK of the much-talked about police reforms that were approved by the federal cabinet in April 2001.
The federal interior ministry, in consultation with the provincial and AJK governments, is coordinating all matters relating to the implementation of the reforms. The ministry has held meetings with the representatives of these governments on May 15, July 10, Aug 9 and Sept 5 to chalk out a strategy for an effective implementation of these measures.
The reforms require of the provincial and AJK governments to establish district public safety commissions; restructure provincial, regional and district police headquarters; introduce capital city police system in their capitals; separate investigation and law and order functions; and establish an independent prosecution service.
In October 2001, they were directed to allocate additional funds amounting to 7.5 per cent of their current year’s police budgets for the implementation of the police reforms.
According to the sources, however, the AJK government, citing its poor financial health, informed the federal government that it could not arrange Rs31 million (7.5 per cent of its police budget) for the implementation of the reforms and asked the latter to allocate special funds for it.
The sources said the federal government, following the plea taken by the AJK government, had agreed to provide the amount to AJK, but the pledged amount had not been released yet.
“Since then, on a number of occasions, the AJK police have taken up its case with the quarters concerned in Islamabad, but there is no progress”, they said, alleging that the “passiveness” of the AJK finance department was another reason for the delay.
The sources identified “low crime rate in Azad Kashmir and its disputed status” as a hurdle in the allocation of funds for the police.
The AJK is the only region, where the maintenance of law and order is the responsibility of the police, whereas in the provinces a number of agencies, including paramilitary troops, are lending help to police to maintain law and order.
“Instead of giving credit to us for low crime rate, the authorities in Islamabad deny us what is our genuine right”, the sources said and regretted that the AJK police had also been denied its share from another Rs205 million, which the federal government had allocated to the federal ministry of interior for distribution to provinces for the maintenance of law and order in the wake of US attacks on Afghanistan.
They said the police had demanded Rs25 million from that amount in view of the tension along the LoC as well as incidence of Indian -sponsored terrorism.
The resource crunch has also affected the performance of the AJK Special Branch. The federal government is said to be contemplating increasing the role of civil intelligence agencies in the internal affairs.
According to the sources, the police have worked out a programme, which includes creation of much-required posts and provision of latest equipment, for the reorganization of the Special Branch. However, if funds are not made available, implementation of this plan will remain a distant dream.