QUETTA will get its police command and control system in June this year as part of the Safe City Project. Once it becomes operational, the city police will be able to constantly monitor sensitive locations in the city with the help of 400 closed-circuit TV cameras. The project will go a long way in helping police improve their performance and curb frequent militant attacks against civilians and security personnel. Balochistan is facing multiple security challenges, which have adversely affected its people and economy in the last one and a half decades. In some parts, the authorities are trying to suppress the militant Baloch movement; in others, they are struggling to eliminate extremist religious groups involved in sectarian killings, especially in the provincial capital. But violent groups such as the banned TTP are still active along with separatists said to be funded by hostile countries. The uncertain security conditions prevailing in Balochistan have made it a dangerous place in which to live, travel and invest, besides putting a huge financial burden on its coffers because of the steep increase in the expenditure on law and order.

Indeed, security conditions in the province have somewhat improved in recent years because of security initiatives undertaken with the help of the federal government and the army to train police and improve intelligence gathering. But a lot still needs to be done to make Balochistan’s cities and towns safe for residents and visitors. In 2019, for example, the province suffered 84 major terrorist attacks, including 22 in Quetta alone, in which at least 151 civilians and personnel of law-enforcement agencies lost their lives along with 20 suspected militants. Though the number of such attacks had fallen by 27pc and fatalities by 52pc from the previous year, the very fact that such incidents have not stopped leaves little room for complacency. Initiatives like the Safe City Project can help avert and curb such incidents. The provincial government as well as the intelligence agencies must remain vigilant and strengthen cooperation for better intelligence gathering in order to make the province a peaceful place.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2020