KARACHI, Pakistan: The Sindh Assembly has at last approved the stay of Rangers in the province for a period of one year but curtailed the powers of the paramilitary force to arrest any suspect other than involved in target killing, extortion, kidnapping for ransom and sectarian killing without the prior approval of Provincial Chief Minister.
The Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Sindh government tabled the resolution regarding the extension of Rangers’ special powers on Wednesday as required by the Constitution of Pakistan which binds the provincial government to get the extension ratified by the legislature.
However, the PPP government delayed fulfilling the constitutional requirement which the opposition parties alleged as reluctance by the Sindh government to extend the special powers to Rangers.
But today, the Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Sial presented the resolution on the floor of the House which subsequently passed the resolution.
Under the resolution, the Rangers have been given special powers for further 12 months but the resolution states that the paramilitary force will only have powers with respect to the following:
- Target killing
- Extortion
- Kidnapping for ransom
- Sectarian killing
The resolution further states “That any person, who is not directly involved in terrorism and is only suspected of aiding and abetting terrorists or by way of terror financing or facilitating terrorists shall not be placed under preventive detention under any law without prior written approval of the Government of Sindh i.e Chief Minister. It is clarified that in case a person is suspected of the above, cogent reasons with complete evidence justifying such preventive detention shall be provided to Government of Sindh, which will, based on the available evidence, approve or reject such proposal of preventive detention.”
“The Pakistan Rangers Sindh shall not raid any office of Government of Sindh or any other Government Authority without prior written approval of the Chief Secretary, Government of Sindh.”
The opposition parties in Sindh have accused the provincial government of deliberately curtailing the Rangers’ powers, especially after the certain conditions put forward in the resolution, the Rangers won’t be able to raid and arrest suspects who are involved in massive corruption or facilitating terrorists like PPP’s Dr Asim is currently under trial for such allegations.
It is pertinent to mention here that Rangers are heading the Karachi operation since September 2013 as an attempt to end targeted killings, kidnappings for ransom, extortion and terrorism in the metropolitan.
