Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza said that a committee or a new tribunal would be constituted to probe into the 12th May episode. Replying to newsmen questions at his press conference at Police Head Office on Wednesday, the minister said that investigation into the incidents of May 12 had been cleverly diverted.
He said that shaheed chairperson PPP Benazir Bhutto had refused to accept the tribunal for its judge was biased against the PPP and so were the witnesses who refused to appear before the tribunal. He said the May 12 incident would now be investigated afresh and actual facts would be brought to the fore. Mirza said that he would get a FIR registered against former Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, if he could not prove his allegation against him.
He alleged that a conspiracy had been hatched to murder him and if case this happened, a FIR be registered against Asif Ali Zardari and Zulfikar Mirza. The minister while commenting on this allegation said that Dr Arbab had become mentally sick and needed treatment of a psychiatric. He said that either he should prove the conspiracy plan, or else he would get a FIR registered against him.
Mirza also announced a raise of Rs 500 per month in the salaries of Sindh Police to bring the same at par with that of Punjab Police. The raise given in salaries was part of a number of incentives was decided after a detailed briefing given to him by Inspector General Police Dr Shoaib Suddle at Police Head Office.
"The kind of law and order situation is prevailing in Sindh Province, it is my foremost responsibility to modernise the police forced and to equip it well to deal with the same," the minister said.
"We don't have a force which should be healthy and well equipped to efficiently control the crimes," he observed. Paying compliments to professionalism of Dr Shoaib Suddle, Mirza said that our foremost priority was to control street crimes, highway dacoities, robberies and kidnappings for ransom.
He compared the strength of police force with that of London and the Punjab and said London police have one constable for 150 people, Punjab has one constable for 275 people while Sindh Police have one constable for 575 people. He said to narrow down this major gap not only pending 8,000 vacancies would be filled but another 10,000 vacancies would be created. These vacancies would be advertised in newspapers and filled district-wise.
He described unemployment a big reason for crime growth and said Chief Minister Sindh was chalking out a major plan to provide jobs and this help contain crime tendency. He declared that if Sindh Police gave a good performance, their salaries would be further raised.
Mirza said that in Punjab, a Rs 500,000 compensation is paid to heirs of a police shaheed while its is Rs 300,000 here. He announced doing away with this discrepancy and raising payment of compensation for a police shaheed to Rs 500,000. Besides, he said, the widow of a police shaheed would continue to get salary of the deceased till the time of his retirement from service as well as providing a job in the police department to one of the family member.
On the occasion, he announced that henceforth the police jawans would perform duty for 12 hours instead of 16 hours at present and it would be further brought down to 8 hours when process for recruitment of first batch of cops would be completed. He said in future it would be ensured that police jawans on duty were provided food and other basic facilities.
He regretted the inhuman living conditions of some 600 police trainees who did not have even cots to sleep and only six toilets for them besides other facilities. He complimented IGP Shoaib Suddle who issued immediate orders for provision of required facilities for them.
He also disclosed that a 5-year development plan had been chalked out for Sindh Police for which a budgetary provision of Rs 5 billion would be made. The minister hoped that this plan would be fully implemented during the five-year tenure of the present government.
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