A two-day inter-provincial co-ordination meeting on internal security is being held in Lahore on Monday to discuss a host of security issues confronting the nation for past quarter of a century and the post December 31 situation fraught with social and political upheavals, reliable sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday.
The meeting to be chaired by the Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao will be attended by the four provincial chief secretaries, inspectors general police, home secretaries, directors general Rangers, Punjab and Sindh, inspectors general Frontier Corps, NWFP and Balochistan, senior officials of Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir.
The sources said that issues to be discussed threadbare include terrorism, protection of vital installations and infrastructure, deportation of aliens and foreign nationals involved in various crimes, greater co-ordination and interaction between police of the provinces, release of Pakistani and Indian fishermen, protection of foreigners working in Pakistan, data based immigration and migration, anti narcotics and smuggling measures, and general law and order situation in the country.
The sources said that after the killing of Chinese engineers working on Gomal Zam Dam in NWFP and Gwadar Seaport in Balochistan, the federal government in collaboration with the provincial governments has taken special measures for the protection of around 3,000 foreigners who are working on different development projects in Pakistan. In the meeting further steps will be taken to ensure full protection of every foreigner.
The sources said that there are uncounted aliens living in Pakistan without valid documents. The government wanted to trace and deport them to their own countries, as they are security risk for the country.
Political analysts told Business Recorder that Rs 3.5 billion Machine Readable Passport (MRP) project is another issue, which has caused friction within the government and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML). The government acting on President Pervez Musharraf policy of enlightened moderation and with valid reasons had left out the column of religion in the MRPs and as expected Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) was quick to make it a religious issue and demanded its inclusion in the passports. Although the government took a firm decision on this issue and rejected the MMA demand, yet, the (PML) President Ch. Shujaat Hussain who came back after a two months stay abroad, accepted demand of the MMA without consulting the government of his own party which has put the interior ministry in an embarrassing position.
The analysts say that the federal interior ministry and the provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh will also discuss special measures to handle the agitation to be launched by the MMA and other opposition parties on the issue of "uniform" after December 31, 2004.
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