PESHAWAR: Although law and order situation remains volatile across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, senior police officials say that terrorists are concentrating on southern districts due to proximity of the areas to Afghanistan and a ‘still intact’ network across the border.

They informed lawmakers during a meeting here on Tuesday that terrorists had safe havens in southern districts including Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Bannu and Lakki Marwat.

The meeting, chaired by the speaker of provincial assembly, Babar Saleem Swati, was attended by lawmakers mostly from merged districts and parliamentary leaders of all the political parties. Police chief Akhtar Hayat Khan briefed participants of the meeting.

Sources privy to the meeting said that lawmakers were given a presentation on prevailing law and order situation, operations carried out against terrorists and capacity of police force.

IGP informs lawmakers that Afghan nationals make up 35pc of 4,000 terrorists present in KP

“From this meeting, I would say some 30 per cent of Dera Ismail Khan district, the hometown of Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur and police chief Akhtar Hayat Khan, is, if not totally, under control of militants to some extent,” a lawmaker told Dawn.

He said that police could not patrol in Kulachi, Draband and many other areas of the district. “Militants come out during the night and disappear in the day,” he added.

Sources privy to the meeting said that the police chief was flooded with questions and several queries were not answered. “Mr Khan also left several questions unanswered and told lawmakers to ask these questions from others, referring to army,” they added.

The police chief informed the lawmakers that police were leading from the front in all the merged districts except Bajaur where military was leading operations against terrorists.

He said that terrorists had been focusing on merged districts and benefited from ‘the still intact’ supply line, referring to the Afghan Taliban’s support to the banned outfits for carrying out militant attacks in Pakistan. He added that the network was connected.

The police chief informed the lawmakers that around 4,000 terrorists with 35 per cent Afghan nationals were present in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said that currently there were around 188 Tashkeels [militant formations].

When told that the number of checkposts should be increased if the situation was so bad instead of vacating checkposts at nights, the police chief said that they did not have the capacity to counter so many attacks on the posts.

“I understand that this is beyond the capacity of police as they are not trained to fight against heavily armed terrorists,” an MPA told Dawn. He said that funds being spent on military for fighting against terrorists should be spent on training and equipping provincial police so that their capacity was built.

The police chief also informed the lawmakers that they arrested thousands of terrorists but pointed fingers at the justice system for not punishing them. According to sources, the police chief said that his department devised different strategies for different districts. He told the lawmakers that they would be briefed separately on their relevant districts, keeping in view sensitivity of the issue.

“Political leadership can play a major role but I wonder what the priorities of provincial government are,” questioned a lawmaker. He told Dawn that the members of treasury benches in the provincial assembly, who attended the meeting, should give a message to chief minister about the prevailing situation.

The meeting was held after Mr Swati, during a KP Assembly sitting on Monday, ordered a briefing by provincial police chief Akhtar Hayat Khan on the prevailing law and order situation in the province. He issued these orders following a debate in the house on “poor” state of security in the province.

Sources also said that inspector general of Frontier Corps and Peshawar corps commander will give an in-camera briefing to lawmakers next week.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2025