Salal Ameen
Since Pakistan’s post 9/11 involvement in the war on terror, Balochistan substantially became center of chaos, targeted killings, insurgency, kidnapping for ransom, sectarian attacks which have destroyed the fabric of province. This resulted in destroying the capacity of Balochistan Police to be an effective force.
Unfortunately, the potency of Balochistan police was emasculated by Nawab Aslam Raisani as Chief Minister of Balochistan in 2008. When he traded Balochistan Police with Frontier Corps (FC) instead of building up its capacity his government adopted FC as a solution to law and order issue.
Hitherto, 2014 the strength of Balochistan Police is approximately 38,000. Among provinces Balochistan police gets lowest salaries and this has crippled the force fighting the menace of terrorism for last couple of years. As very often it is attributed,” when the root is worthless, so is the tree” same is the case with Balochistan Police force. Infrastructure of Balochistan police is very frail due to bankruptcy of equipment in force.
Balochistan Police lacks fundamental needs for policing such as patrolling vehicles, neoteric weapons, proper training.
In Mashkay Awaran, five or six personnel are deployed in Police Stations and their equipment is not enough to secure even the police station.
Officers of Balochistan police are well-equipped and alleviated by facilities such as new vehicles, AC rooms, well-equipped government houses, tight security and so on. But lives of constables are poles apart from the lives of officers, constables are serving in different parts of province and they are deprived of fundamental facilities such as uniform, and accommodation.
In district Awaran, low ranking police personnel cannot go for vacations unless their half of salaries change hands under the table with high ranking officers. There are still 40 to 60 ghost police personnel in Awaran police paying half of their salaries to their senior ones. After joining police force constables regret the decision of joining police force.
Recently, a police constable from Awaran district Shakeel Ahmed committed suicide after heavy pressure on him due to nature of the job.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and Balochistan Voices not necessarily agrees with them.
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