PESHAWAR - While the jurisdiction of the
regular police force has been
extended to the tribal districts
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the police still face problems in ensuring their writ
in the erstwhile FATA region
and the government will take
a long time to keep them on
their toes in the region.
Malik Marjan Khan, patron
of FATA Grand Alliance, told
The Nation yesterday that the
policemen even lack uniforms
in the tribal districts, let alone
enabling them to establish
their writ.
“With no police stations and
uniforms, how it is possible
for them to have their write
established in the merged districts,” he added. He said that
the traditional Jirga system is
still in place in the tribal districts.
Also in a tribal district,
South Waziristan, over a hundred students have gathered
in district headquarters Wana,
demanding the initiation of 3G
and 4G Internet services in the
region.
Also, there is a strange situation in South Waziristan as
students have gathered despite the government’s campaign against coronavirus and
enforcement of section-144
to disperse the crowd and ensure social distancing to contain the virus spread.
However, one of the demonstrators, Abdul Qudoos Wazir, told The Nation they were
sitting at a few feet distance
from one another during the
demonstration to ensure social distancing.
Wazir also said that the main
objective of their demonstration is to demand internet facility in the district.
He said there were many
students requiring internet
for online classes as the universities are closed amid the
ongoing lockdown.
When asked that universities in KP have stopped online
classes due to some issues,
Wazir said: “While universities in KP have stopped online
classes, some universities in
Punjab and Islamabad are still
asking students to attend their
online classes, for which we
need Internet,” he added.
He also said: “We talked to
the district administration,
IMRAN MUKHTAR
ISLAMABAD
A major opposition party in
the Senate has called for summoning a virtual session of
the parliament to assume its
oversight role for tackling the
looming health crisis and economic and administrative challenges posed by rising spread of
COVID-19 in the country.
“Parliament’s urgent role of
scrutinizing government, authorizing spending, making
laws and providing leadership
during these testing times can’t
be pushed aside,” parliamentary
leader of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the Senate Senator
Sherry Rehman said yesterday.
She added that it was the need
of the hour that both houses of
the parliament should adapt
themselves to extraordinary circumstances and ramp up e-tech
capacity to temporarily shift towards a virtual parliament.
“These are very trying times
for the whole country, and parliament is the best platform to
shape unified responses that
address the urgent needs of our
people, while coordinating an
evolving situation across Pakistan.”
The demand from PPP leader for convening the virtual session of the National Assembly
and Senate has come days after
Free and Fair Election Network,
a non-government organization, had called the parliament
and the provincial assemblies
to take the centre stage in order
to forge political consensus and
provide leadership to the executive during COVID-19 crisis.
On March 13, the government
had abruptly prorogued the National Assembly sitting fearing
the gathering of large number
of lawmakers can cause spread
of coronavirus.
Similarly, it has not summoned the Senate since it was
prorogued on March 4 to prevent further spread of the disease in the country.
“There is clearly a huge resource-crunch hitting all sectors as lockdowns stretch on. It
is a national challenge that requires regular messaging and
creation of distancing spaces in
a country with populations living in cramped spaces,” the former opposition leader in the
Senate said adding that everything was done communally in
Pakistan.
She further said that parliament must take the lead in
working on all such issues creatively and transparently, in the
spirit of national unity.
“Many countries in the world
are innovating fast to meet
the needs of their populations
while keeping them safe, and
are creating online parliamentary spaces that can mobilize
democratic tools to re-order
many priorities.”
The PPP lawmaker said that
international aid coming into
Pakistan must be monitored
and placed under parliamentary sight. She urged that meetings of essential standing committees of the parliament
including health, finance, planning, information technology,
interior, law and others must
be convened online to plan for
contingent futures.
Stressing on the importance
of creating fresh protocols for
parliament staff, the lawmaker said that telework facilities
could be organized for the parliament staff as Senate staff runs
at 1,115 people, while 2,200 NA
staff including CDA officials are
posted during sessions.
“Like many parliaments that
are stepping up to the challenge, Pakistan too can address
key issues of security of votes,
online debates as well as committee work which has already
begun in one special committee
made for monitoring COVID-19
responses.”
Senator Rehman appealed
to the Senate chairman and
speaker National Assembly to
take this task into their own
hands as parliaments all over
the world can’t be exempted
from exploring urgent innovations to conduct crucial business. Our task as representatives has become even more
acute in times of crisis and legislators must continue to be answerable and available to the
public, she concluded.
Police writ in tribal dists still a distant dream
but we came to know that the
security forces consider the
4G internet service to be a security risk.”
A senior official of the administration said that despite the enforcement of section-144, the police in the
tribal district were unable to
disperse the crowd and to arrest the violators of the lockdown.
“When the section-144 has
already been enforced and
police chief of the district informed, why the South Waziristan police chief is not arresting those who have come
in shape of a crowd thus becoming a potential risk of
coronavirus?” he questioned.
On the other hand, a senior
police officer form the region
admitted that in South Waziristan, the realities are different from other settled districts.
“We can’t implement a law
in South Waziristan the way
we do it in other settled districts of the province. This is
a new district, we have yet to
set up police stations while
the Khassadar personnel,
who have been merged in the
police force, also lack proper training,” said the officer
while requesting anonymity.
Recently, a Lashkar – a
group formed by the tribals
in order to punish someone
for a wrongdoing – demolished the house of two alleged kidnappers in the kidnapping case of two minor
children in Khyber tribal district.
Khyber’s District Police Officer Dr Iqbal was not available for comment. However, Deputy Commissioner
Khyber tribal district Mahmood Aslam Wazir admitted
that tribal traditions are still
strong in the merged districts
and it will take a long time to
ensure the laws implementation in tribal districts on
the pattern of the settled districts of the province.
“Although we are trying
to ensure appropriate administration, still the area
had Maliks, area subedars,
and collective responsibility system of FCR in the formerly FATA districts for decades; this is not possible
to replace those things and
certain tribal traditions any
time sooner. It will take a
long time,” he added.