Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has said that revamping the institutions and putting in place a flawless system for efficient policing services has always been a hard task to achieve. His government took pressure but never compromised on revamping of public sector institutions and changing the system for service delivery. He was addressing a farewell given in honour of the outgoing IGP Nasir Durrani at Chief Minister House Peshawar.

Police have emerged a professional force as result of steps of his government which include, bring an end to political interference, making it free from all sort of influences, and giving them an ideal environment to deliver the professional policing responsibilities so that it could regain the lost trust of the people.

The chief minister said that previously the people complaints were growing against police as it used to protect the interest of those who posted them. This government did away with this culture and introduced reforms and introduced financial autonomy. His government discouraged political interference in posting and transfers of police enforcing a check and balance mechanism that brought considerable improvement in their performance, he said.

He said his government wanted to change the policing culture by curbing corruption and putting an end to 3rd-degree torture techniques in the police stations which defamed the police. Following these pieces of advice, police emerged as a truly professional force dedicated to serving people.

Khattak said it was easier to let the police work and get political mileage and use the force for political gains but it was against the interest of the people and the province, he added. He said his government thought that enough was enough, let the police work for the public welfare and do justice with their professional responsibilities and address to the public complaints and grievances, he added.

He reminded that before legislation, he had transferred all his power to police so that they could not find any excuse in the delivery of the expected result. Now fresh blood inducted to the police through NTS who had the ability to work more honestly, with zeal and dedication and the happier reality is that now police could not be used for political gains. We are not espousing the desire to accumulate power, we want to devolve power with check and balance mechanism so that the system itself could regain momentum and start delivery.

Pervez Khattak lamented that the political leadership and the decision makers had a mismatch between their words and actions. His government wanted justice for all, protection of rights of the people, giving rights to the deserving, merit based decision making and the system should have an inbuilt solution to all this that would provide a space to the people to have an easy access to the services.

He appreciated the outgoing IGP Nasir Durrani who delivered professionally and won the heart of the people through his professional working. He hoped that the new one would take forward the good work started by Nasir Durrani.

IGP Nasir Durrani in his address said that his stay in the province was one of the greatest ever experience of his career. It was surprising “how a political leadership could delegate power to institutions, rarely witnessed in the history of the country”. He paid salute to the PTI leadership who took pressure but never transferred it down to the police force.

The chief minister gave a shield to the outgoing IGP Nasir Durrani in recognition of his remarkable services to the people during his stay in the province.