PESHAWAR - Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has stressed for collective wisdom for bringing back peace to the province that, he said, is the ultimate goal to lead KPK towards sustained economic growth.
He was chairing the 1st meeting of working group on law & order in the province at Conference Room of the Chief Minister Secretariat Peshawar. Secretary Home Syed Akhtar Ali Shah, members of working group on law & order including Saeed Khan, Ex-IGP, Syed Muhammad Ishtiaq, chairman DDAC Peshawar, MPAs Nadia Sher, Ayesha Naeem, Nageena Khan, Justice (Retd) Ghulam Mohiuddin Malik, senior journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai, Chief Provincial Khateeb Qari Roohullah Madani, religious scholar Hafiz Abdul Ghafoor, ex-chamber of commerce presidents Sharafat Ali Mubarak, Afnan Aziz and Yousaf Sarwar, Additional Chief Secretary (FATA), Commissioner Peshawar and Additional IG Special Branch attended the meeting.
The chief minister said it was good that the working group consisted of men of integrity belonging to cross-section of life and were the public opinion leaders in their respective fields, hence they would go through a comprehensive process and brainstorming to gather solid recommendations with the aim how to win back durable peace and eliminate all sorts of crimes and terrorism from the society. He said, “Our province having long borders with FATA and neighbouring war-hit Afghanistan has been facing unrest but we have to face and tackle the challenges accordingly with laying a foolproof security network all over the province.”
Khattak agreed with the recommendations of the members for chalking out short and long terms security plans with special branch and intelligence re-enforcement. He said that involvement of the public and seeking their cooperation and satisfaction was a must for 100 per cent success in this regard. He assured that Counter-Terrorism Department would be soon in action while work on safe city Peshawar project, installation of CCTV cameras with central command mechanism, setting up of forensic science laboratories, Police FM Radio namely Pasban, cyber crimes section, computerisation of entire home and police department, ban on unauthorised use of loud speakers through Auqaf department and medical tourism facility for the Afghan patients would be taken seriously that must be part of the report of working group. However he underlined for fixing deadlines for implementing each and every recommendations of the working group, adding that the group has been fully empowered to do so.
He agreed with view point of the members that corruption and incapability of the officials in the government departments, especially in police, special branch and intelligence agencies, besides causing other evils also opened doors for infiltration of terrorist and criminal elements in their ranks.
He said that such era of bad governance was over and now the departments including home and police department would have to function properly and not only to kick out the black sheep from their folds but to take corrective measures also to overcome all the problems.
He said, “Our province has been facing challenges on multiple fronts but our people also have the ability to tackle it with courage and consistency.” He said that the government has guaranteed the police chief and all others that it would not interfere in their affairs anyways but would expect positive results for bringing down the crime rate ensuring peace and controlling the terror incidents.
He said the provincial government was endeavouring to exploit all political and diplomatic means to stop terrorism being external element but all the concerned departments would have to play its due role as well and give positive results in this regard. “We all have to live here with our families and society and would thus have to work hard all and sundry to make our province a cradle of peace and tranquility as well as to pave way for rapid industrialisation and economic prosperity here,” he concluded.