The Senate standing committee on interior on Saturday asked the officials to limit the residential accommodation of diplomats to the Diplomatic Enclave owing to security concerns.
The committee asked the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to work out a plan, creating enough space for shifting all embassies and offices of the United Nations located in residential sectors to the Diplomatic Enclave. Committee Chairman Talha Mahmood informed the media about the issues taken up at the meeting at a press briefing, here.
The meeting was attended by Interior Secretary Kamal Shah, Senator Kamil Ali Agha, Dr Abdual Khaliq, Rehmat Ullah Kakar, Sadia Abbasi, and Raziq Khan. Talha said that the diplomats had been residing in different residential sectors of the capital and a number of embassies and UN agencies also have offices in residential areas. "There is immense security threat not only for themselves (foreigners) but also for the civilians," he added.
"After learning that Diplomatic Enclave was facing scarcity of space to have residential facilities for all diplomats, we have decided to call the CDA chairman in next meeting to plan another diplomatic enclave, if required," he said.
He said that the committee took serious notice of the deteriorating law and order situation across the country, particularly in Islamabad. In this respect the committee underlined the need to review the policies designed to improve law and order situation, he added.
The chairman conceded that the Interior Ministry and its attached departments lacked resources to tackle terrorism and improve law and order. The committee also sought more budgetary allocations for the security agencies to improve their performance, he said.
He said the security agencies were confronted with issues like weak salary structure, heavy load of work due to shortage of manpower and lack of advanced weaponry. "We have decided to invite officials of Finance Ministry to sort out the financial constraints confronting Interior Ministry," he said in reply to a question.
"In order to enhance the efficiency of security agencies we have chalked out a program in which police department and paramilitary troops will be segregated." He said that the committee took serious notice of misbehaviour with the staff of Senator Abdul Raziq by Sarai Alamgir police a few months ago.
He said the committee has given six-week time to the Interior Ministry and Gujrat police to prepare the inquiry report. In addition, the committee called for stern action against DPO, SHO and subinspector of police who were allegedly responsible for detaining Raziq's vehicle and misbehaving with his driver.
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