QUETTA, Dec 7: The Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has threatened to launch a protest movement against the planned merger of Levies with police. Speaking at a press conference at the press club on Wednesday, Senator Nawab Ayaz Khan Jogezai of the PMAP said that the rate of crime in rural areas controlled by Levies was lower than in urban areas.

He said the government had not taken any action on a resolution of the Balochistan Assembly calling for elimination of a den of criminals in the Piralizai Jungle camp.

Senator Jogezai, who is also convener of the Pukhtun Ulasi Qaumi Jirga, asserted that the parliamentary committee led by Senator Mushahid Hussain had recommended continuation of the levies system. He said the government must respect the parliamentary committee’s recommendation.

He said the levies currently controlled 95 per cent of the province’s area with a staff of 11,153 while police administered the remaining five per cent area with 16,120 personnel. He said that 2,343 incidents of crime occurred in 2004 in the area controlled by police and 840 in the levies-controlled area. He said the per square kilometre expenditure on police was Rs126,288, whereas that on levies was Rs1,664.

He claimed that the federal government wanted to directly control the districts and villages by extending the police system.

He appealed to other parties and people to cooperate with the PMAP in its agitation if the government did not abandon its plan for merging the forces.

He said the protest movement would include strikes.

The PMAP leader criticized the government for not eliminating the criminals’ den in the Piralizai jungle camp on the Quetta-Chaman highway and said terrorists, kidnappers, car lifters, drug traffickers and burglars operated from there.

He said the Balochistan Assembly and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had called for elimination of the den but the government was hesitating to take action in this regard.