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Sindh govt rejects MQM plea for police officials removal

Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza.—APP/File

KARACHI: The recent gulf that has emerged between the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its coalition partner, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), is likely to further widen, as the Sindh government on Saturday categorically denied that any major reshuffle was on the cards in the provincial police hierarchy hours after the senior leadership of the MQM called for the removal of the Sindh IG as well as the Karachi police chief.

A key member of the Sindh cabinet and senior leader of the PPP ruled out any action in line with the demands of the government’s major coalition partner (both in the centre and the province), which warned it would take a ‘crucial decision’ if the IG and the CCPO were not removed. ‘IG Salahuddin Babar Khattak is a thorough and true professional,’ Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza told reporters. ‘Not a single allegation leveled against him by the MQM leadership has any substance. Similarly, CCPO Waseem Ahmed has the same transparent professional record and one cannot understand the logic behind the MQM’s reservations, as they had been appreciating the police performance in recent months. But all of a sudden they have turned against them.’

He said being home minister he was responsible for the performance of the police and whatever proposal the law-enforcers had given was for the betterment of the law and order situation in the city. ‘The police performance and efficiency have proved effective in controlling crimes and other anti-peace activities,’ added the minister. However, Dr Mirza admitted that there was a serious issue of trust between the MQM and the PPP, as despite spending more than a year together on the treasury benches in the centre and the province, the ground reality is that the relationship is not ideal.

‘We have been with the MQM for more than one year but there is a trust deficit between the two parties. But we expect our partners and friends to continue the dialogue process to resolve the issues rather than going public against each other,’ he said. In a hurriedly called press conference late on Friday after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani chaired a coalition parties’ meeting at the CM’s House to review the city’s law and order situation, senior MQM leaders expressed serious reservations over the proposed measures to maintain peace in Karachi.

The MQM leaders at the Karachi Press Club, joined by London-based senior office-bearers, said the police authorities were ‘patronising the land and drug mafias’ and  had proposed a house-to-house search in Karachi, aimed at collecting licensed weapons of the people and leaving them unarmed so that they could easily fall prey to the land mafia. The Sindh home minister showed surprise over the MQM’s stand and said there was no such operation discussed in the meeting chaired by the prime minister, and the reservations expressed by the coalition partner were based on a ‘misconception’.

‘No operation planned’ 
‘Let me clear this disinformation. There is no search operation planned for Karachi, nor do we believe that it’s a solution to deweaponise the city,’ he said. There was a discussion on the rising number of arms and illegal weapons in the city and I personally opposed the search operation and requested the prime minister to take up this matter at the federal level and first devise a policy to seal the provincial borders to put a stop to the supply of such arms. He said the allegations leveled against the IG Sindh and the CCPO Karachi for ‘supporting land and drug mafias’ were unjustified, as both the officers had proved themselves through their actions against the land grabbers and drug dealers.

‘Since I have taken charge we have registered 350 cases of land grabbing and arrested 437 accused in this regard,’ he said, adding that he had ‘searched the records to find the replies of every single allegation made by the MQM leadership in their press conference.’

In reply to a question about the MQM’s 24-hour ultimatum to the Sindh police to remove the ‘land mafia’ from Al-Asif Square, he said it was unfortunate that the PPP’s coalition partner never took action against the culprits in the last five years, when it was in charge of the provincial home ministry and also enjoyed a share in the federal government. It’s not an easy task and it would take time to return results. We have been here just for the last one year and I am surprised that my MQM colleagues never addressed this issue during the last five years, when they were ruling the province and the country,’ added Dr Mirza.

Source.Dawn Karachi :By Imran Ayub  Sunday, 03 May, 2009