ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: The government has decided to provide more funds to provinces to improve the deteriorating law and order situation. The sources said on Monday that the fresh funds would be spent on strengthening the police department and other law-enforcement agencies besides providing more training for which the government planned to seek the support of foreign agencies.
It was decided to replicate what was termed successful experience of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CLPC) in Karachi in all provincial headquarters and the federal capital.
The ministry of interior is said to have sought increased annual funding to improve the overall law and order situation which had especially deteriorated recently in Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh by comparison with the NWFP.
Several steps that were taken to expedite the implementation of the Police Order 2002 were reportedly considered insufficient and inadequate to achieve objectives of making the police an efficient institution and accountable to the people through their elected representatives.
Through consultation with the provincial governments, necessary changes were incorporated in the Police Order 2002 through Police Order (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004. These amendments, officials concerned believed, had appropriately empowered the district nazims, Provincial Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission and District Public Safety and Public Safety and Police Complaints Commissions.
The government believed that a number of new initiatives had been undertaken to strengthen the capacity of law-enforcementg agencies to provide security to the lives and property, maintenance of law and order, improved access to justice, and tightening of the entry of illegal entrants.
The government was encouraging agencies to make extensive use of technology and modern equipment to fight crimes. The steps taken included creation of a national database where data received from various agencies with regard to terrorism, law and order, and issues of internal security had been collected and centrally stored. The same is now linked through a computer hub with all provinces. This, the government argued, had made possible better coordination among law-enforcement agencies.
According to an official document, under the Access to Justice Programme for which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had offered $350 million, the government was providing development funds for augmentation of the judicial system to increase judicial officials’ efficiency.
Agreements on counter-terrorism were signed with a number countries and more such agreements would be signed with other countries soon.
A long existing peculiarity of administrative structure in the country was the exclusion of certain frontier regions from the operation of normal laws applicable in the rest of the country. In line with its declared objective, the government had taken a number of steps to bring these regions on a par with the rest of the country.