In their separate reports, the two agencies requested Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and the cabinet division to intervene and persuade the provincial political leadership not to waste gains achieved through the conversion of B-areas into A-areas, the Dawn reported, attributing to sources.
The crux of the reports was that the rolling back of police force in most areas had encouraged the militant outfits, including the Taliban, to re-organise themselves, taking advantage of loose policing by the Levies, which did not have the required training and the will to address such challenges.
But the Prime Minister Secretariat was against interfering in provincial matters because it would be against the 18th Amendment, which granted autonomy to Pakistan's provinces, the sources added.
During former military ruler Pervez Musharraf's regime, the cabinet had offered a 5.5-billion-dollar package, under which all B-areas in Balochistan policed at the time by Levies- constituting about 95 per cent of the province- were converted into A-areas, where police force was empowered to maintain law and order and 243 police stations were set up, the paper said.
According to its sources, after the 18th Amendment that empowered the federating units to become responsible for internal law and order, the provincial cabinet, led by Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani, overturned the decision of transforming B-areas into A-areas and withdrew police force from these 243 police stations.
Instead, the provincial cabinet revived the Levies force, a majority of whom had already been merged into police.
--ANI
