KARACHI, April 25: The Sindh government has asked the centre to permanently deploy the Rangers in Karachi and give up the practice of awarding yearly extensions to the paramilitary force that seems to have become a part and parcel of the law-enforcement agencies in the city, it emerged on Wednesday.

Sources told Dawn that a formal request for the permanent deployment of the Rangers in Karachi was made about six months back by the provincial government.

They recalled that the paramilitary force had been assisting the police force in Karachi since 1989 when a PPP government in the centre had called in the Rangers and the Frontier Constabulary to curb rising political violence. At present, 12,000-strong Rangers force is based in Karachi.

However, the adviser to the Sindh chief minister on home affairs, Waseem Akhtar, said no such request had been made by the provincial government.

When his attention was drawn to the fact that the city had been relatively peaceful for the past many months and analysts made out a strong case for the diversion of funds currently spent on the Rangers to the police force, Mr Akhtar became quiet for some time and then said he would rather not comment on these assertions.

A spokesman for the Rangers confirmed that the Sindh government had asked Islamabad for the permanent of deployment of the paramilitary force in Karachi.

The sources said the Sindh government had already allotted several acres of land to the Rangers on the Super Highway near Toll Plaza for the relocation of their offices dotted across the city. They added that one of the five wings of the Rangers in Karachi, the Sachal Corps, had already been shifted to the new premises. They made it clear that the paramilitary force would continue to be headquartered in Jinnah Courts on Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road.

Analysts maintain that it would be wrong to attribute the current spell of peace in the city to the services of the Rangers. They insist that the presence of the paramilitary force costs the taxpayers so dearly that the people of Karachi would be better off without them. They point out that while the Rangers were brought in as a stopgap arrangement, they have succeeded in occupying a sizable chunk of the city’s prized real estate originally belonging to the provincial education department and the city government.

According to the provincial budget 2006-07, current expenditure estimates for the Rangers amount to over Rs350 million.

Senior police officials, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that it was a widely held view in the police department that the cash-strapped provincial government should divert the resources wasted on the Rangers to the police force.

They said the Rangers were so averse to the idea of returning from Karachi that the police officials who advocated their return were victimised by the powers that be. They recalled that former Karachi DIG Farooq Amin, who forcefully made out a strong case for the immediate withdrawal of the Rangers from the city, earned the opprobrium of the establishment because of his independent views.

They said they found it mildly amusing that the Rangers took to such duties as securing a VIP enclosure at the National Stadium during a cricket match or escorting high-ranking officials like the home minister and the city nazim with great delight. They recalled that the Rangers had been deployed in Lyari a year ago to put an end to the gang war that had cost the lives of hundreds of people in the crime-infested area. They added that other than taking positions at various places, the paramilitary force had done little to end violence.

The police officials said that the practice of routinely inviting the federal interior minister and the Sindh governor to the Rangers headquarters seemed to be aimed at getting legitimacy or acceptability in the eyes of the public.

However, the Rangers spokesman, Captain Fazal Mehmood, said that such allegations were nothing more than the worthless talk of disgruntled officers. He argued that even though the Rangers had limited powers, they had arrested notorious terrorists and killed militants like Amjad Farooqi in Nawabshah.

He added that the Rangers had led the Lyari operation from the front and arrested some well-known gangsters.

He claimed that the Rangers had repeatedly asked the city government to be relieved of the responsibility of controlling a part of Karachi’s water tanker distribution system. He added that the city government had requested that the Rangers continue with their current role in the operation of hydrants.

However, City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal said he was not aware of any such request. He made it clear that the water board was in the process of establishing hydrants in each of the 18 towns of Karachi and systematically taking over hydrants from the Rangers.

When asked why the paramilitary force did not consider returning from Karachi now that there had been peace in the city for quite some time, the Rangers spokesman said: “We would be happy to return to the border, but Karachi is such a volatile and unpredictable city.”