Plan to deploy FC in Karachi scrapped

KARACHI: The Sindh government has scrapped a plan to approach the centre for deployment of Frontier Constabulary (FC) troops to assist the Rangers in keeping the peace in the city considering that normality returned to the strife-hit areas after a weeklong violence, it emerged on Sunday.

The need for deployment of FC personnel in the city was earlier felt when police and the Rangers remained unable to stem the violence that claimed 99 lives in a week after the assassination of a provincial legislator in the early days of August.

Officials and people privy to some recent meetings of the relevant authorities held to review security arrangements shared a few facts with Dawn indicating that the provincial authorities also considered that the deployment of FC troops and their accommodation in the metropolis would be an additional burden on the provincial exchequer in the present situation.

“Since the situation became normal and no more serious incident or violence was reported in the city, the Sindh government did not send any formal request to Islamabad for the FC deployment,” said a senior official citing the outcome of the recent discussions.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik had told the media last week that the Sindh government had called for the deployment of FC personnel to assist the Rangers as the latter were found short of strength to combat the violence.

Although the last week meeting of Rangers and police high-ups had decided in principle to call in FC troops, the Sindh government reviewed the proposal and put it on the back burner.

The official said: “The provincial officials who discussed the issue were not convinced to go with the decision. Besides, there was a strong opinion of government functionaries that FC troops would cause additional expenditure that cannot be borne at this time.”

He said a “return of peace” to the city further convinced the authorities to avoid sending the request for FC troops’ deployment in Karachi.

Rangers have already been assisting police in the city since 1989 when the Pakistan People’s Party government in the centre at that time had called in the paramilitary force to curb rising political violence in the metropolis. Roughly, the 12,000-strong Rangers’ force costs the Sindh government more Rs410.1 million a year.

“The government has already increased allocations in the financial year 2010-11 for the police department to Rs29.6 billion, which is 19 per cent higher than the Rs24.9 billion budget of the last financial year,” said the official, adding that the budget allocations for Rangers were separate.“It was not basically Sindh government’s idea to seek deployment of FC troops for the assistance of Rangers. We believe that the situation is better controlled with the available strength of police and Rangers within the shortest possible time,” he said, while responding to a query regarding the strength of security personnel in the city.

He said Rangers would set up more pickets in strife-hit areas and surveillance and patrolling would be increased in line with the measures decided in the last week meeting held under the chairmanship of Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

“Under the present arrangements, a proposal for the deployment of FC troop in the city is no more alive,” he reiterated, saying that the government’s primary focus was capacity building of the police force which would be a permanent and lasting arrangement.