In response to various statements emanating from various quarters regarding ECP's responsibility to maintain law and order during the general election 2013, it has been deemed appropriate by the Commission to put the issue in its correct perspective to avoid any disinformation as well as to identify the quarters who have to discharge this constitutional responsibility.
Under the Constitution, the ECP is responsible for holding elections and all executive authorities are bound to assist the Commission to fulfil its constitutional duty. Thus ECP convened a meeting of all the four provincial governments and the federal government on 2nd January 2013 to start preparing security plans for the elections to be held in May 2013.
They were called again recently on April 25, 2013 to review the progress. They all shared their detailed security plans and assured that all possible security measures would be adopted to provide security to the candidates, political leaders, and all matters allied to the election activities. However, unfortunately, tragic events are taking place on daily basis and, therefore, all security and law enforcement agencies need to sit together, identify the root causes, propose action plans and then implement them in a well co-ordinated manner within given timelines.
It would be appreciated that the ECP can only show a way put as the state's law enforcement apparatus is working under the directions of the provincial governments and the federal government. It is also pertinent to point out that the ECP and caretaker governments can plan only for a short period of about 50 days whereas this problem has been wreaking havoc for more than a decade and obviously some pre-emptive remedial measures were required to be initiated and implemented in the past decade to provide security to life, property and honour of helpless people of Pakistan on permanent basis. Apparently nothing was done to achieve this goal so vital for smooth running of the state affairs.
One such serious effort, however, was made by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security which, after detailed deliberations spread over many months, submitted its recommendations to the Parliament in 2009 in the form of a "Report Of The Parliamentary Committee On National Security" but unfortunately, as has been the fate of all such reports, it was conveniently shelved and inspite of occasional demands made by some quarters to do something about it, nothing came out of it. The results are before us all to see and still no one is making any concrete effort to find a way out except routine statements like: serious notice has been taken; authorities have sought a report in 24 or 28 hours; so much amount will be paid for dead and injured, and so on so forth. The question is who we are kidding? And all quarters concerned must realise that the helpless people are watching closely and that their is a limit to their patience.
Thus, all concerned, instead of deceiving the people and themselves by blaming the ECP for security situation in the country, first all those who are dealing with security should morally first accept their failure and then they better do something about it to provide state protection to life, property and honour of people of Pakistan before it is too late.
As a part of its duty as an institution of the state though not directly dealing with law and order of the country - ECP handed over copies of the aforementioned Report on National Security to four Federal Ministers - for Interior, Law, Information and. Information Technology - when they called on the Commission on April 22, 2013, suggesting that the caretaker governments should at least set up a mechanism for implementation of this Report. This would be the first step toward a thousand mile long journey, a step which couldn't be taken earlier. One such mechanism could be a separate Division direct under the control of the Prime Minister which would include representatives of all intelligence and law enforcement agencies/departments divisions of the provincial and federal governments respectively who should sit together under one roof at PM Secretariat and adopt necessary measures on daily basis to solve this problem in the short term as well as long term.-PR
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