PESHAWAR: The Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak presided over a special meeting of the cabinet that termed the suicidal attack on the Provincial Minister Israr Ullah Gandapur as conspiring to sabotage the negotiated peace process.
The cabinet also agreed to raise counter-terrorism force to be headed by a DIG rank officer that would be responsible for intelligence gathering, investigation and operational matters.
The cabinet also conceded to raise the numerical strength of police force and demanded the federal government to repatriate the FC for redeployment at the border between settled and tribal areas.
The cabinet directed the IGP to redeploy the elite force at public places in order to provide visible security to the life and property of the citizens.
The cabinet urged the federal government to accelerate the process of negotiation for durable peace and should not cause further delay in the initiation of dialogue in order to ascertain who wanted negotiation and who were sabotaging the process. The cabinet showed firm commitment to deal with an iron hand those who were putting hurdles in the sincere efforts of the provincial government for bringing back durable peace in the province. The entire talk process would expose the anti-state, anti-people and anti-peace elements. The cabinet decided to take on the elements damaging the process of initiating negotiation for peace. The govt would launch appropriate action against those committing terrorism and disturbing the peace of the province at the behest of foreign hands. The cabinet asked the federal govt to make up its mind for initiating talks as the conspirators and anti-state elements had been targeting the province of KP and the provincial government could not wait for delayed action of the federal government and the provincial govt could not afford leaving its people at the mercy of terrorists. The KP Cabinet was unaniomus that the process dialogue would lead to identify who wanted peace and who did not. The provincial cabinet expressed reservations over the unnecessary delay in the initiation of negotiations for peace as mandated by APC and demanded the federal govt to declare KP as hard area in order to attract good officers to work here. The cabinet took strong exception to the acts of extortion from the citizens and kidnapping for ransom and directed the IGP to make responsible SHOs of their respective areas and if ever laxity or dereliction from duty by any SHO he would be brought to book.
The cabinet further directed to install cameras at all check-posts throughout the province for preventing acts of terrorism and keeping a vigil on performance of police and security forces. The cabinet agreed to restrict the movement of Afghan refugees in the cities and suburbs and checked them out and if found any illegal movement or activity, they could be deported. The cabinet directed to ensure that the property dealers and owners of the houses would provide details of the tenets to their respective police stations and the process should be completed within two weeks.
The cabinet that met at CM Secretariat Peshawar was attended by Senior Minister Sirajul Haq, Minister Information and Public Relations Shah Farman Khan, Minister Agriculture and IT Shahram Khan, Minister Health Shaukat Yousufzai, Minister C&W Yousaf Ayub, Education Minister Atif Khan, Minister Auqaf Habibur Rehman, Advisor to CM for Miniral Development Zia Ullah Afridi, Advisor Physical Planning Yasin Khalil, Advisor Social Welfare Mehr Taj Roghani, Chief Secretary Arbab Shahzad, IGP Nasir Durrani and administrative secretaries of various departments.
