PESHAWAR: A high level meeting held here on Tuesday with the Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair reviewed in detail the overall law and order situation in the province.

Besides Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dr. Kazim Niaz and Inspector General Police Muazzam Jah Ansari, the meeting was also attended by all Divisional Commissioners, Regional Police officers and other high ups of Police and Home department. Inspector General Police Muazzam Jah Ansari gave detail briefing regarding the steps taken to improve law and order situation in the province and future course of action in this regard.

The chief minister while expressing his concerns on the incidents of murders occurring due to blood feuds and property disputes in different parts of the province, directed the Police for concrete steps under a well devised strategy to effectively prevent such incidents in future. He decided to hold fortnightly meetings on regular basis to review law and order situation in the province and directed that all the RPOs will brief the review meeting about law and order situation in their respective regions and measures taken by them to improve the situation.

Mahmood Khan, while reiterating his resolve to purge the province off illegal weapons and narcotics said that Police should take concrete and visible steps to this end which cannot be compromised at any cost. It was principally decided in the meeting to ban the issuance of new arms license. A case to this end will be moved to the provincial cabinet for formal approval.

The chief minister stated that provincial government would provide all out resources to the Police to improve law and order situation in the province and added that police needs to further improve its overall performance. He appreciated Police for its overall performance but stressed the need to further improve it up to the public expectations. Underlining the need to ensure writ of law at every level. The chief minister directed the Police high ups to have close eye on anti-social elements across the province.

Further directing to take strict actions against display of arms, aerial firing and narcotics. Mahmood Khan also directed the high ups of Police to work out a strategy to further strengthen the Counter Terrorism department and Special Branch of Police to enable them effectively deal with the challenges of modern time.

While briefing the meeting about various aspects of future course of action to improve law and order situation in the province, it was informed that Police was working to collect and tabulate data of all blood feuds and property disputes at Police Station level across the province and added that besides other steps, Dispute Resolution Councils were being further strengthened. It was further informed that Narcotic Eradication Teams (NET) were being constituted at all district headquarters under the direct command of District Police Officers to net the big fishes involved in drug trafficking.

Briefing the meeting about the overall performance and achievements of provincial Police during the year 2021, it was apprised that 496 intelligence based operations were conducted and 113 suspects were detained.

Similarly, more than 15,000 Kilograms of various narcotics were seized and about 16,000 accused were arrested during various actions against narcotics adding that more than 17,000 accused were also arrested during actions against illegal arms and ammunitions. The forum was also informed that a total of 206 cases were registered, 663 accused were charged and 587 accused were arrested during crack downs against land mafia during the current year.

He termed the Good Governance Strategy as an important priority area of his government and said that divisional commissioners and RPOs would be responsible for the implementation of the Good Governance Strategy and in its letter and spirit. He directed all the Commissioners to initiate massive crackdown against encroachments across the province and hand over the retrieved land to the concerned departments within two months’ time period.

He also directed the divisional and district administrations for crackdowns against the use of polythene bags in all over the province saying that no polythene bags should be seen anywhere in the province. While taking notice of the traffic issues and public miseries due to protest demonstrations frequently staged in front of provincial assembly building in Peshawar, the chief minister directed the concerned authorities to specify any other suitable place for such activities and to impose complete ban on such activities in the aforementioned place.