PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has agreed to fund the plan to make 454 vehicles of the police department bulletproof to protect the lives of law-enforcement officials in terrorist attacks.

The development comes at the heels of the death of additional inspector general Mohammad Ashraf Noor, the second-in-command of the KP police, who was killed in a suicide attack on his vehicle on Nov 24 in Peshawar city’s Hayatabad neighbourhood.

The decision to this effect was made during a meeting on Nov 28, four days after the death of Mr Noor, sources told Dawn.

The meeting was chaired by KP chief secretary Mohammad Azam Khan and attended by provincial police chief Salahuddin Khan, finance secretary Shakeel Qadir Khan and other relevant officials.

Initiative to cost govt around Rs1.5bn

A source said the plan was likely to cost the province’s kitty to the tune of Rs1.5 billion.

A police department’s statement issued here said a summary for making 454 vehicles bulletproof had been forwarded to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for approval.

It said in the first phase, every police station, sub-divisional police officer, district police officer and regional police officer would get a bulletproof vehicle.

Finance secretary Shakeel Qadir Khan told Dawn that the provincial government had in principle agreed to the armour-plating of over 450 police department’s vehicles.

He said the total cost of the plan was not immediately known as the police department had yet to share its details, especially the specs of the vehicles to be made bulletproof, with the government.

The secretary said in some cases, the available vehicles would be made bulletproof, while in other cases, new vehicles had to be procured as most of the existing ones were unfit to bear the additional burden of armour-plating.

“In the third scenario, some vehicles will be made partially bulletproof and others completely bulletproof,” he said, adding that the police department would made a decision on it.

Mr Shakeel said the exercise had yet to take place but the chief minister had in principle agreed to the conversion of the police vehicles into bulletproof ones.

He said the finance department had also agreed to provide resources for the venture and patrol vehicles and those used by DPOs and other officials, which were on roads most of the time, would be made bulletproof on first priority.

“Our minimum requirement at this moment is to make 450 vehicles bulletproof,” he said, adding that it was a huge requirement.

He however said the police department was not going to purchase new bulletproof vehicles as such a huge number of vehicles would cost close to Rs80 billion.

“For the time being, KP will follow the Pakistan Army’s model in which the military reinforces a single cabin pickup with armored plates,” he said.

The secretary said the vehicles would be made bulletproof in batches and that the finance department would provide resources for it as soon as the police department recommended the first batch of 50 or 100 vehicles for the purpose.

He added that the service provider’s capacity would also have to be kept in mind.

“The market, too, does not have the capability of making such a large number of vehicles bulletproof,” he said.

When contacted, KP police chief Salahuddin Khan Mehsud said the bulletproofing of department’s vehicles would be done by Pakistani companies and that the funds would be released for 100 vehicles at a time.

“The cost will vary from Rs2.9 million for smaller vehicles to Rs4 million for five doors vehicles each,” he said, adding that the exact prices would be determined after the tendering process.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2017