PESHAWAR: In an interesting development on Wednesday, Pakistan Army has planned a withdrawal of forces from various parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), with preparations underway to prepare civilian law enforcement agencies to helm the law-and-order management in these areas, particularly in Malakand.
A meeting of KP Apex Committee, which is the highest decision-making authority of the province, is scheduled for today (Wednesday) to discuss the transition and strategy of transferring the law-and-order management from military to civilian law enforcement agencies.
Sources told a leading English daily that a working group will be assigned tasks to work on fixed timelines and delivery options to the committee.
A senior security official said that it was because of the sacrifices of the security forces that an area, which was once infested by terrorists, had now been cleared and being transferred to civilian law enforcement agencies. He added that the transition plan would have to keep certain indicators, criteria and triggers that determine the outcome.
KP has invested immensely into the law enforcement apparatus as the incumbent government has increased investment in the law and order sector at a disproportionally higher percentage as compared to other sectors. The police alone has witnessed a 75 per cent increase in its budget during the tenure of the present government and falls third after Education and Health under the KP government’s budgetary allocation.
The current deployment of police in Malakand Division stands at 2,351 in Buner, 2,249 in Upper Dir, 4,341 in Lower Dir, 1,815 in Chitral, 2,035 in Shangla and 6,341 in Swat. Additionally, a special police force (SPO) was also inducted in the Malakand Division to fill the gap as far as the actual requirement was concerned.
The force was used as local contacts for intelligence, as well as coordination since the military operations were still going on and the police were required to facilitate and support more than two divisions of Army who were deployed there. Currently, the civil and military authorities are both working in tandem.
The meeting will also look into the overall cost against the number of personnel deployed by the military, frontier corps and frontier constabulary to determine the exact need for the security, including the financial requirements.
Since Malakand division has previously relied on tourism, the need to revive a hassle-free tourism environment in the post-conflict area without compromising the security concerns will also be discussed, the sources said.
For this reason, the revival of the training facility in Gullibagh located in Swat for hospitality and hotel management, which was declared as a sub-jail and then converted into an internment centre, will also come under discussion.
Currently, the KP governor, Peshawar corps commander and KP chief minister are permanent members of the apex committee.
The military had launched Operation Rah-e-Haq after it was called in by the ruling Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in Malakand division in 2007 when the Taliban faction of Swat lead by Mulla Fazlullah challenged the writ of the government. In 2009, another full-fledged military operation Rahe-e-Nijat was also launched in the area to battle the militancy.